If we want to build a strong economy in Hawaiʻi, we need to make thoughtful, well-informed decisions based on relevant, reliable data. When people and institutions twist information or use junk data to support their preferred position, it hurts all of us.

On Sept. 2 the Honolulu Star-Advertiser published an editorial in support of raising the minimum wage (“Hawaiʻi’s workers could use a raise”). 

A month later, Honolulu Civil Beat published an opinion piece (“Who really earns the minimum wage?”) in which the author argues against raising the minimum wage. She states that “two people can look at the exact same thing” and come to different conclusions about the minimum wage. However, the numbers that this writer cites to make her argument against raising the minimum wage are not relevant to the situation in Hawaiʻi.

This isn’t even a case of comparing apples to oranges. It’s more like apples to orangutans.

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