Response
Response
Writer didn’t
analyze cost of living
In Michael Last’s letter in the March 25 edition, he sniped at people he’d heard “bemoaning the fact that HELCO’s rate went up yet again.” As a “utility rate specialist,” Mr. Last wanted to know “how much” the rates have increased, so as to cause such “bemoaning” by HELCO customers. He compared costs of HELCO power and gasoline from 2002 to present (10 years).
His analysis reflects what I hear most everyone say these days, that prices have more than doubled in a memorably short period of time. He noted that HELCO’s price per kilowatt hour increased from 18.6 cents to 40.4 cents since 2002, or 46 percent. He also noted gasoline has increased from $1.699 to $4.479 per gallon of regular in the same period, an increase of 37.9 percent, but gas prices have risen since Mr. Last wrote his letter, so the true increase is now higher than 37.9 percent.
What Mr. Last didn’t analyze was the increase in earnings over the same period (or lack of increase because of so many lost jobs in the latter half of that period).
Not being a specialist like Mr. Last, I don’t have archived records, so I just used Hawaii’s minimum wage as a gauge. In 2002, it was $5.75 per hour, and it is $7.25 per hour today. That’s a 20 percent increase — only half that of the essential costs of living addressed by Mr. Last. And we all know how much food costs have sky-rocketed this year, and no adult can live on minimum wage.
This huge disparity between gains (or losses) in household income, and cost of living increases, certainly explains why the people Mr. Last heard discussing HELCO’s latest rate increase were “bemoaning.”
Mr. Last must be very well off financially if he isn’t feeling the oppressive burden most people are feeling as a result of the tornado-like spiral effect of inflation over the past few years, amplified by increased unemployment and poverty. Mr. Last should analyze that, and be grateful he can pay his HELCO bill and not have to go to a food bank to do it.
Julie Compton
HOVE