Hawaiʻi farm and ranch workers made more money last year than their peers on the mainland but not enough to keep pace with the state’s high cost of living, according to new data from the Department of Agriculture and Biosecurity.

Ranch and farmworkers earned $21.98 an hour in 2024, which is 13.1% higher than the national average. That’s still less than the so-called survival wage that nonprofit groups consider to be the minimum needed to meet basic needs in Hawaiʻi, one of the most expensive states in the U.S. And it’s far below the average Hawaiʻi resident’s salary of $36.86 an hour.

Farm and ranch workers earned well over Hawaiʻi’s $14 per hour minimum wage from 2014 to 2024.

Specifically, livestock workers across the island chain earned an average of $0.57 more than their crop-growing counterparts.

Hawaiʻi will lift its minimum wage — already almost twice the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour — to $16 per hour on Jan. 1 as part of a graduating scheme that will end at employers being mandated to pay $18 per hour by the beginning of 2028.

Next year’s increase will likely result in a lift in agricultural wages, Hawaiʻi Farm Bureau Executive Director Brian Miyamoto said, keeping in line with historical trends.

Hawai‘i Grown

This ongoing series delves deep into what it would take for Hawai‘i to decrease its dependence on imported food and be better positioned to grow its own.

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Farm and ranch owners have typically been wary of minimum wage hikes, especially in Hawaiʻi, where farms make an average net profit of $10,636 annually, whereas the national average is $58,079.

Currently, the average farmworker’s hourly rate falls short of the state survival wage, a number that accounts for the cost of living in Hawaii.

Sitting below the survival wage means the average farmworker is considered ALICE — Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed — so they live above the federal poverty line but are unable to afford basic expenses. In Hawaiʻi, 29% of households are classified as ALICE, according to Aloha United Way.

Many farmers and ranchers typically include ancillary benefits not considered in the state agriculture department’s data, offering free or subsidized housing, vehicles or other services, as part of employment packages.

So the mandatory lift may make farming in Hawai‘i a more challenging enterprise, Miyamoto said, reducing already “razor-thin margins.”

“They may not be able to recoup that income and will find it hard to pass that onto the consumer,” he said.

“Hawai‘i Grown” is funded in part by grants from the Stupski Foundation, Ulupono Fund at the Hawai‘i Community Foundation and the Frost Family Foundation. “Data Dive” is supported in part by the Will J. Reid Foundation.