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If you could leave Hawaii, would you?

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  • #16
    Re: If you could leave Hawaii, would you?

    After I got out of UH, I lived in Idaho for a few years working at a paper there. Then moved to Tokyo for three. I kinda decided to try my hand at living in Hawaii again and fortunately wound up working at job I really enjoy. But I wonder if I'll ever be able to afford a home here. Prices are a complete joke, yet idiots continue to buy crap houses for idiotic sums of money. I can't see myself doing that, just on principle (although perhaps I will). Only time will tell if I'll stick around or not.

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    • #17
      Re: If you could leave Hawaii, would you?

      If I could have the packers/movers here today, I would leave! Hubby's company moved us here for "one to three years" back in late '93, and we're still here. I try to not question, cuz I have faith in a God that is personally insterested in every angle of our lives, but still I pray to move back to the mainland, preferably home to Texas, back to one of the most wonderful extended families in the world.

      This paradise is a blessing to those that have huge families here, but to me it's just a place that has come to cost more than it's worth. Besides, my bottom line isn't the TAXATION hell this place is, but that home is where the heart is, and my heart is in South Central Texas, where I was born and raised, as it should be.
      Stop being lost in thought where our problems thrive.~

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      • #18
        Re: If you could leave Hawaii, would you?

        Wow, I just finished reading this whole thread, and am surprised that a couple of posters say that their job in Hawaii would pay a lot more on the mainland! I just assumed we are paid more for living here, and in hubby's case, it may be so, but we do not get C.O.L.A., that I know for sure, but he does make 100K a yr, and I do not think this specific job would pay him more on mainland, and we may get to transfer to Seattle or Florida someday, with this engineering job.

        Just seems every job, or darn near every job would pay more here. Other things cost more here than mainland, so I thought, oh boy did I think it was proportionately higher pay here in just about everything. WHY does hawaii pay less for comparable jobs, yet so many businesses charge more, for their costs are more?

        Sigh, maybe someone will be able to explain it, maybe I won't figure this one out.
        Stop being lost in thought where our problems thrive.~

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        • #19
          Re: If you could leave Hawaii, would you?

          Originally posted by Karen
          Just seems every job, or darn near every job would pay more here.
          Oh, if only! If only! (Sigh.) You'd think that would be the case, or even just hope so, but it's not. For most of us, at least.

          You make a good point by bringing up COLA, though, 'cause that's one way you get more in gross dollars than comparable employees on the mainland. Federal workers and military are compensated for the higher cost of living "overseas" -- which includes Hawaii. IIRC, it's 25 percent. Folks who relocate here with federal jobs are thrilled when they see the giant new numbers on their checks from Uncle Sam... but they soon find out the money disappears just as fast.

          WHY does hawaii pay less for comparable jobs, yet so many businesses charge more, for their costs are more?
          I know it's going to sound like a flippant answer, but it's true, and many economists have elaborated on it at length, saying, essentially, that employers in Hawaii pay lessthan they do on the Mainland simply because they can. There are pressures, to be sure, such as a much higher cost of doing business (including mandatory health care, which is no small benefit to employees), but that alone doesn't account for the small paychecks.

          It's an employer's market, because there's always someone else willing to do the same job for less. If I wanted to hire a network technician, I can advertise it for minimum wage (unlike almost anywhere else), because I'll still get fifty resumes. After all MCSE/Cisco certified geeks are pumping gas and running cash registers.

          Also, our labor force is not mobile like that of Mainland cities. Our qualified workers can't just hop a bus and work for a company in another town. We're a captive market -- both as customers, and as employees.

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          • #20
            Re: If you could leave Hawaii, would you?

            Originally posted by pzarquon
            You make a good point by bringing up COLA, though, 'cause that's one way you get more in gross dollars than comparable employees on the mainland. Federal workers and military are compensated for the higher cost of living "overseas" -- which includes Hawaii. IIRC, it's 25 percent.
            Effectively, it's actually even more because COLA isn't subject to federal income tax. That's why those Pearl Harbor shipyard jobs are so prized...

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            • #21
              Re: If you could leave Hawaii, would you?

              I think if the cost of housing wasn't so high we'd be okay. Here in Kea'au, where homes of equal curb appeal cost about 1/3 as much as in Honolulu. Because homes cost less here, I realized I didn't have to work anymore. My wife works and I stay home and terrorize this board all day long.

              She tells me it's my turn to take a break after 10-years of two jobs to take care of my family while she went back to college and raise our children. So now I stay home and raise our 8-month old son and I took an early retirement at age 44.

              You can make here in hawaii, just get out of Honolulu. When I need my Ala Moana fix, its just a 1-hour flight away.
              Life is what you make of it...so please read the instructions carefully.

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              • #22
                Re: If you could leave Hawaii, would you?

                Pzarquon,

                thanks and you did help explain it better than I could have, alone. The captive market, it being an island, and sure, I can understand how this state isn't very business-friendly, tax them a lot, and overhead here is a lot, so they pay less, sigh....because they can. Boy is this a wake up on the subject, for me! I have had mainland friends and family ask me if pay is in-line with costs here and I didn't know, so I just said, well it must be! LOL....hubby's company found out we were unhappy when renting, a few years ago, so the gave him a 22% pay raise that yr, and since then, a five and a 3, two consecutive yrs, so with the low interest rate, it did get us into the lower end of the market, and we bought a bit more than two years ago, before a huge price boom.

                Sigh...paradise, with family here, sure it would be. Still so many move to Las Vegas, for example, that have even great-grandparents here. Must be hard for them, but at some point, quality of life overtakes the heart.
                Stop being lost in thought where our problems thrive.~

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                • #23
                  Re: If you could leave Hawaii, would you?

                  Originally posted by adri1456
                  Leave Hawaii? NEVAR

                  Hawaii is where I was born and raised. Hawaii is my only home, and if I left, then I rather die.

                  When I went to Texas for a school trip, no one had the aloha spirit, everyone just didn't talk to me because i was "brown" (plenty people either black or white, never "inbetween".

                  And when I asked for directions, they looked at me weird because I spoke pidgin, and I never knew how for translate it into english.

                  My brother stay in Michigan, and he say that its very cold and snowy. No more local foods or Hawaiian songs (he had to rip it from CDs before he left and put it in his computer).

                  This is the only place where everyone can understand you, whether your having a bad day, or a good one. No one can ever pay a broke college student to ditch his family, friends, his island home to live in "haole land".
                  Adri raises a good point: if you're white, living in America is a lot easier than if you're not. When I went to California, it was the first time in my life that I ever felt like a "minority". More so when I would visit even whiter states like Texas or Colorado. Shee, what a weird feeling. This must be what the kotonks feel like all the time. No wonder they're so angry and neurotic.

                  I think that haole guys like our friend dick, kama'aina though they may be, have less problems adjusting to life in America than us browner types would, and therefore are less reluctant to try leaving. And it makes sense that folks like Karen and Albert, who weren't born here in the first place, have less of a stake in staying.

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                  • #24
                    Re: If you could leave Hawaii, would you?

                    >>>I think that haole guys like our friend dick, kama'aina though they may be, have less problems adjusting to life in America than us browner types would

                    Hmmm... last time I checked, Hawaii was in America. But I know what you mean.

                    Also, I wonder why haole people would be thought of as having "less problems" (sic) adjusting to life on the mainland. Just because of the color of our skin? Is skin color the only contributing factor to one's adjusting to a certain place? Interestingly enough, I felt a larger dose of co-called 'culture shock' moving to Idaho than I did when I moved to Japan.

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                    • #25
                      Re: If you could leave Hawaii, would you?

                      Being a military family, the issue hasn't been IF we could leave Hawaii, but rather we HAD to leave Hawaii (at some point). Hubby's first experience was when he left for boot camp, mine was about 1 1/2 years later, after we got married with a 1 year old son and another one on the way. Of all places, his first duty station was in Patuxent River, Maryland. Talk about being homesick. The people on the East Coast, at least in my neighborhood, weren't friendly at all. I didn't expect everyone to say hi, but even an acknowledging smile almost non-existent. It was a pretty rough time emotionally for me at that age to be away from the customs I was so familiar with and took advantage of. Thankfully we weren't there for too long.

                      We moved to Jacksonville, Florida. It reminded me more of home. At least the people there had a warmer, friendlier personality. One of the first things I've noticed about Florida was the sand there is fine, finer than grains of table salt so I didn't care to walk in it much. My friend, who was born and raised in Florida told me they have sand not boulders on their beaches (comparing Florida sand to Hawaii's coarser sand).

                      When we moved back to Hawaii, I immediately took notice of the things I had missed when living on the Mainland:

                      • Ohana
                      • Blue ocean
                      • Mountains
                      • Tradewinds
                      • Brown people
                      • Rubber zoris
                      • Plate lunches

                      Anyways, we've moved several times since. Hawaii is my home, it will always be my home because no matter where I reside, I'll take Hawaii with me in my heart. Unfortunately, we're one of those who can't afford to purchase a home and live comfortably in Hawaii, so we've decided to set roots in the next best place (for us), Washington state. We're on the waitlist for Hawaiian Homestead so maybe in the future, we might be able to relocate. We're hopeful anyway. http://hawaiithreads.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
                      Send POI

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                      • #26
                        Re: If you could leave Hawaii, would you?

                        I'm dealing with this issue right now, cause i just graduated and my parents want me back home, but i can't make myself leave this place. It's grown too much on me, plus i met the love of my love here... i guess i'll just stay!

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