A minimum wage bill that was fast-tracked through the state Senate earlier this year is now dead, but lives on in a competing bill that was gutted Monday.
Senate Bill 2018, which would have raised Hawaii’s minimum hourly wage to $18 by 2026, blazed through the Senate by the end of January, but spent two months motionless when House committees failed to discuss the measure. After missing a deadline Thursday, the measure is now defunct.
“We had our own bill for minimum wage,” said Rep. Richard Onishi, chair of the House Committee on Labor and Tourism, who refused to hear discussion on Senate the bill. “The Senate bill was just a minimum wage increase, and we felt ours was better.”
The bill Onishi (D-Hilo, Puna) referred to was House Bill 2510, which passed through the House at a more sedate pace earlier this month. Onishi, a co-introducer of HB 2510, touted the bill for including further support for low-income families, such as increasing food tax credits for lower-income people and providing a permanent and refundable earned-income tax credit for qualified taxpayers.
“The House’s attempt wasn’t just for minimum wage,” Onishi said. “Our bill was aimed at helping working families.”
Unfortunately for Onishi, HB 2510 no longer exists in its original state. After a Senate committee hearing Monday, the full text of the bill was replaced with language largely identical to SB 2018.
“They took everything we had out of it and made it their bill,” Onishi said.
The gutted bill would increase the hourly minimum wage over three increments. First, on Oct. 1, it would rise from the current $10.10 to $12, and then again in 2024 to $15, and finally in 2026 to $18.
The one difference HB 2510 now has from SB 2018 is a change to tipped wages, wherein tipped employees can be paid a certain amount less than minimum wage.
Currently, that threshold is $0.75 below minimum wage, and previous drafts of HB 2510 would have actually widened that threshold, but HB 2510 will decrease that to $0.35 on Oct. 1 and remove it entirely in 2026.
With SB 2018 dead, HB 2510 is the only vehicle still alive in the Legislature that can be used to advance a minimum wage increase this session, Onishi said.
While Onishi had said earlier this year that he expected a minimum wage increase to pass this session, he was less confident Thursday, saying HB 2510 will have to head to conference committees after passing the Senate so that both sides can come to some sort of compromise.
“I don’t agree with their changes,” Onishi said. “I don’t think just a minimum wage increase is enough to help people.”
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.