What share of Hawaiʻi’s projected workforce entrants will have a living-wage job opening available over the next decade?
Workforce Understory Episode: Season 1, Episode 1 — The Geography of Opportunity
Geography: Statewide
Topic: Living-wage opportunity, projected job growth, and education requirements
The takeaway
Among Hawaiʻi’s counties, Honolulu has the highest share of projected living-wage job openings requiring a bachelor’s degree, at 47%. It also has the lowest share accessible with only a high school diploma, at 30%. Nearly half of Honolulu’s projected living-wage openings require a bachelor’s degree.
What this visualization shows
This visualization compares the education typically required for projected job openings in Honolulu County, distinguishing between openings that meet the living-wage threshold and those that do not.
The comparison reveals that education requirements are connected not only to whether someone can find work, but also to the quality of the opportunities available to them. Honolulu offers jobs across multiple education levels, but access to living-wage work is more closely tied to bachelor’s-degree attainment than it is in Hawaiʻi’s other counties.
At the same time, a bachelor’s degree is not the only route to economic security. Nearly one-third of Honolulu’s projected living-wage openings require no more than a high school diploma, reinforcing the importance of understanding which occupations provide strong wages through experience, technical preparation, apprenticeships, or other non-degree pathways.
Why this matters
Education is often presented as a straightforward path toward economic mobility: earn a higher credential and gain access to better employment. This visualization shows why the relationship is more complicated.
For Honolulu residents, a bachelor’s degree provides access to a substantial share of projected living-wage opportunities. That makes affordable and equitable access to higher education an important workforce issue. Yet a strategy focused only on bachelor’s-degree attainment would overlook thousands of living-wage openings available through other routes.
Communities therefore face a dual challenge. They must help more learners successfully navigate pathways into degree-requiring careers while also identifying, strengthening, and making visible the living-wage opportunities that do not require a four-year degree.
This evidence invites Honolulu to ask a more meaningful question:
How can we expand access to living-wage work without treating a bachelor’s degree as the only route to economic security?
Evidence:
Questions this visualization helps answer
How does the number of projected workforce entrants compare with the number of living-wage openings?
What share of projected entrants may enter a workforce without enough living-wage opportunities?
Is Hawaiʻi’s projected job growth sufficient to support economic security for the next generation of workers?
Does Hawaiʻi face a shortage of jobs overall, or a shortage of jobs that provide a living wage?
Curiosity:
Questions this visualization raises
What happens to the 41% of projected entrants for whom there is no corresponding living-wage opening?
How many will leave Hawaiʻi in search of better opportunities?
How many will work multiple jobs or remain in employment that pays below a living wage?
How does the ratio of entrants to living-wage openings differ across counties?
Which demographic groups face the greatest barriers to accessing the living-wage opportunities that do exist?
How would the ratio change if wages increased, the minimum wage rose, or more existing jobs became living-wage jobs?
Which industries could create additional living-wage opportunities at sufficient scale?
Is the gap between workforce entrants and living-wage openings improving or worsening over time?
Youth Perspective
Contributor: Hawaiʻi Island Resident, Age 19
The 41% gap stood out to me. Young people can do everything we ask, including finishing school, building skills, and completing internships, and still enter an economy without enough living-wage jobs. That reframes Hawaiʻi's retention challenge as something that is not only a skills gap or a question of whether graduates are prepared. It is a shortage of opportunities that make staying financially realistic. I hope policymakers and employers track this ratio over time, including which groups are most affected, because preparing more workers will not solve the problem if the economy does not create enough quality jobs for them to fill.
