It’s Hard to Live in the “Happiest State in America” — Here’s Why I Still Fight to Stay

It’s 6:50 a.m. on Tuesday. I just got out of the water in Waikīkī. In about 15 minutes, I’ll be home, unloading my surfboard and getting my 8-year-old out the door and off to school. That’s one of the biggest perks to living in Hawaii, the place where I was born and raised and — despite the high cost of goods, an overpriced housing market, and the lack of IKEA and Trader Joe’s — I chose to continue to live.

It’s not always easy living in the Islands. Yes, we have year-round sunshine and some of the world’s most beautiful beaches. But it’s not always rainbows and palm trees living here — ironic, since personal-finance website WalletHub ranked Hawaii as the happiest state in 2025.

According to the report, the Aloha State had the second-lowest depression rate and highest self-reported life satisfaction. Nearly 85% of adults in Hawaii reported being in good or better physical health, and the state has the longest life expectancy in the country. Hawaii also boasts an unemployment rate among the lowest in the U.S. — currently 2.7% compared with the national average of 4.3% — and a higher percentage of households earning more than $75,000 a year. 

Not to mention this is a bucket-list vacation destination, with golden-sand beaches, miles of hiking trails, a diversity of cuisines, and even an active volcano. Why wouldn’t the 1.4 million people who live in Hawaii be happy?

When I returned to Hawaii after getting my master’s degree at Northwestern University at the end of 1999, I got a job as a journalist at a local newspaper. I was 25 and earning $50,000 at a time when the average annual pay hovered around $35,296. The first thing I did was take my family out to dinner at a fancy restaurant. The bill was $300 for the five of us.

Unlike many of my friends who grew up here, I didn’t want to move back in with my parents. I got a small rental in a Honolulu neighborhood. I paid $900 a month for a one-bedroom cottage. Add to that my student loan ($150 a month), utilities ($200 a month), car loan payment ($300 a month), and other expenses, my salary was starting to quickly dwindle. So I got a second job teaching journalism at a nearby community college to make enough to pay my bills and save a little.

That was 25 years ago. I have never earned enough in a single job to cover all of my expenses, which have only increased since moving into a single-family home in Honolulu and starting a family. (Preschool, for example, had cost my husband and I about $2,000 a month for three years.)

According to the U.S. Census in 2020, Hawaii’s median family income ranked seventh in the nation at $96,462. That may seem like a lot, but consider this: Hawaii is one of priciest places to live. According to an annual study by CNBC, which includes housing affordability and cost of goods, Hawaii was tied (with Massachusetts) for third-most-expensive state in the U.S.

Just about everything has to be shipped in from somewhere else, which drives up prices. For example, a gallon of milk at Foodland, a locally owned grocery chain, is $8.99; at Vons in California, it’s $3.99. A dozen eggs in Hawaii cost nearly $10; in California, it’s less than $5.

The price of food is directly related to the price of oil, which is used to transport food to the Islands. (Hawaii imports about 90% of its food and energy.) And energy in Hawaii isn’t cheap. In fact, Hawaii’s residential rates are more than double the national average, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Hawaii residents pay 41.03 cents per killowatt hour, while the national average is 17.47 cents per killowatt hour.

And those are just the necessities. If you want to travel anywhere, it requires getting on a plane — and that’s not cheap. The price of a round-trip ticket to Los Angeles from Honolulu in October cost at least $400 for economy class; to Maui, a 40-minute flight, it costs about $175. (October is considered off-season for travel.)

I live in a four-bedroom, three-bathroom home in a residential neighborhood in Honolulu, the value of which is estimated at $1.2 million, according to Zillow. This is the home where my husband grew up, and the only reason we can afford to live here is because after his dad died, his mom refinanced the existing mortgage and monthly payments are manageable. Otherwise, we’d probably be renting, like the 43% of Hawaii households.

In 2024 the median price of a single-family home hit $950,000, a 6% jump from 2023, according to data reported by the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization. The median price of a condo was $600,000. These are among the highest median home prices in the country.

According to the state, fewer than 1 in 3 households can afford a single-family home in Hawaii, and fewer than 1 in 2 can afford a condo. You would need to earn $252,000 a year to afford a new median-priced home. The average salary for a nurse in Hawaii is $113,000, a firefighter $73,000, and a public school teacher $63,000.

Experts and the federal government say you shouldn’t be spending more than 30% or your income to buy a home. But in urban Honolulu, where the median home price is over $1 million and median family income is $120,000, the mortgage would require 73% of the median paycheck. The same home would cost 147% of a low-income paycheck, based on half the median income.

The high cost of housing contributes to Hawaii’s homeless crisis. In the most recent Hawaii Point in Time (PIT) count in 2024, there were 6,389 people experiencing homelessness across the state, with the majority on O’ahu. The high cost of housing is also a major driver pushing people, especially young adults, out of the Islands.

There is a price for paradise — a steep one — and too often we are caught up in the day-to-day woes to enjoy it.

Even though my husband and I work multiple jobs and have had to make hard decisions about our kid’s after-school activities and family travel plans, we always try to take advantage of living here. We carve out time on weekends to hike or hit the beach. We barbecue at home on our deck, tend our productive vegetable garden year-round, and take staycations on Neighbor Islands. (I mean, we may as well vacation in some of the world’s most popular destinations.) I love that I can eat just about every cuisine I’m craving, or that I can pop into any grocery store for ingredients for cuisines across the world.

Would I say I’m happy? Sure. But I’m lucky to live in a home that I can afford despite a meager salary, in a career that I love and surrounded by family and friends I grew up with. And being 15 minutes from my favorite surf break helps, too.