Data Dive: Consumers Sacrifice To Pay Hawaiʻi’s Record Electric Bills
Report: A third of the state’s residents cut back to have enough for electric bill.
The high cost of electricity in Hawaiʻi is no secret. The price people pay for that may be less visible.
Between August 2023 and August 2024, 33% of state residents cut back on basic necessities so they could pay their electricity bill, according to a Lending Tree report. That put Hawaiʻi at 29 out of the 50 states.
Meanwhile, over the course of that year, 25.5% of Hawaiʻi residents found themselves unable to pay part or all of their energy bill (13th out of all states), according to the report, based on U.S. Census Bureau surveys.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration January 2025 report, the cost of electricity in Hawaiʻi for residential customers approached three times the national average. In October, the latest month for which the agency provided data, the cost was just over 41 cents per kilowatt hour in Hawaiʻi versus about 17 cents per kilowatt hour nationwide.
The average monthly energy bill in the state — $230.80 — was the fourth-highest in the U.S.
In 2022, households with incomes below the federal poverty level spent almost a fifth of their income on electricity costs, while the average household spent just over 2% of their income on their electric bill, according to the state’s Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.
The state’s high cost of living has been highlighted recently by the ALICE in Hawaiʻi report released in January by Aloha United Way, which surveyed Hawaiʻi’s working poor and found that prices were pressuring residents to move away.
The report by ALICE — an acronym for Asset Limited Income Constrained Employed — said one in three Hawaiʻi households have a member who has considered moving out of the state in the past year.
In the state Legislature, a bill that would create a program to assist eligible residents with their energy bills — SB191 — is awaiting a hearing at the Senate’s joint Commerce and Consumer Protection/Ways and Means Committee. It will die if it is not scheduled by Friday.
