Issue Position: Puna's Middle Class & The Working Poor

Issue Position

In my law practice of more than 30 years, working people have come to me with their problems and I have seen first-hand the effect the Great Recession has had on them. The middle class is shrinking and the poor are growing in numbers and desperation.

Puna District has the second lowest per capita income in the state. Yet the middle-class residents of Puna, which also serves as a bedroom community to the Hilo county seat, provides our financial backbone here. We are hard workers with few assets and what little we have should not be unjustly taken from us.

Most of us are proud to be middle-class workers who strive to make sure that our children have a good future. We do our best to pay our bills and borrow money only when necessary to buy a home or a car or an education. We assume that since we have worked all our adult lives and have paid our bills, that we will always be able to do so. The Great Recession has done damage to that belief.

I have seen the hopelessness of people who were laid off assuming that this is just a temporary setback and they can get another job because they always did and finding out that there is no other job; or what jobs are there are temporary or part-time. I noticed when I campaigned for candidates, the promise of more jobs rings hollow with much of the public.

Hawai'i's safety net is full of holes. It was through practicing law that I saw the limitations for helping the working people in state law. Too many workers who slip into poverty through debt cannot work themselves back out due to limitations in out-dated state laws.

Currently, 75% of all civil court filings on the Big Island are foreclosures, with Puna having a large portion of those cases. Hawai'i's laws do not adequately allow those in debt to have a fresh start. California prevents banks that have already foreclosed from attaching other assets. Most states provide a safety net in foreclosures for such other assets as inherited lands, vehicles, even basic household appliances. Not so in Hawai'i.

Another lucrative practice impacting those who can least afford it is that of the check-cashing loan creditors. Such outfits have been exempted here from the normal usury laws that limit the interest rates of other credit companies. Arizona and all but eight other states have banned check-cashing or payday loans completely. I would like to see Hawai'i do the same, or at the very least, limit the annual interest to an affordable rate rather than its present-day potential annual interest of more than 400%..

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