The paycheck is local. The prices are not. Hawaiʻi is the most expensive state in the country, and on Maui we feel it in the grocery aisle, the gas pump, and the power bill, every single month. Here's what it actually costs to live here.
The average Hawaiʻi household pays 42.23¢ per kilowatt-hour for residential electricity. Even the priciest mainland states, California at 33¢ and New York at 29¢, pay much less. Our households use less power than most, but the monthly bill, around $213, still leads the country.
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Monthly (March 2026 data, released May 2026).
The paycheck is local.
The prices are not.
Wages on Maui are set by a tourism-and-service economy. Prices are set by an island 2,500 miles from the nearest mainland port. When UHERO adjusts incomes for the cost of living, Hawaiʻi's real purchasing power ranks near the bottom of U.S. states.
UHERO: high prices or low incomes? →Roughly 85 to 90% of what we eat is imported. A barge delay or a fuel spike shows up at the checkout within days. The state's own food security strategy estimates we send hundreds of millions of dollars off-island every year for groceries we could grow here.
State of Hawaiʻi: food self-sufficiency strategy →Hawaiʻi households pay more per month for electricity than households in any other state, even though we use less power. The 100% renewable transition is meant to bend this curve. Residents are paying the premium in the meantime.
EIA: highest residential electric bills in the U.S. →When rent, food, gas, and power all run well above the mainland and wages do not, the math eventually forces a choice. For 23 of the past 25 years, more residents have moved away than have moved in.
UHERO: beyond the price of paradise →Gas, cars, building materials, everyday goods, all carry a surcharge for crossing an ocean to get here. The Jones Act limits shipping to a small set of U.S.-built carriers and quietly adds to every household budget.
Civil Beat: the Jones Act's grip on shipping →Maui's homes are worth more on paper, so the County is taxing more. Some residential assessments jumped 30 to 50% on the 2025 notices. The County lowered owner-occupied rates in response, but for many households the lower rate did not offset the higher assessment, and the bill still went up.
Maui Now: as values climb, rates drop →New developments we are following, with the source for each. Newest first.
On July 1, Maui Now reports, Young Brothers raised its interisland shipping rates by 3%, and began repaying nearly $30 million in back wharfage fees it owed the state. Since roughly 90% of what we buy is shipped in, freight increases like this one ride along on the price of almost everything at the store. It follows a 25.75% jump in January, with future annual increases now capped at 5%.
The state is weighing a deal to import liquefied natural gas, or LNG, pitched as a way to lower Hawaii’s electric bills. But a UHERO analysis found most of the promised savings come from newer, more efficient power plants, not the gas itself, which arrives around $17 to $18 per million BTU versus $3 to $4 on the mainland. UHERO’s bottom line: we could pay for a costly LNG terminal that sits mostly idle as we move to renewables, and still not see lower bills.
This spring, war involving the U.S., Israel, and Iran closed a key oil shipping route and pushed fuel to record highs, Maui Now reports. Hawaii’s average gas price set an all-time record of $5.63 a gallon in April, with Maui running higher and diesel on Molokaʻi topping $8. Prices have eased since, but on an island where nearly everything arrives by truck and barge, a fuel spike lands on the whole grocery bill.
Cost is not just rent and groceries. It's the bill that comes when there is no doctor on your island, the flight to Oʻahu for specialty care, the wait at a Kula Hospital that has been closed since March.
Read Our Health →