New census data shows '90s as troubling decade

By Timothy Hurley
Advertiser Staff Writer

Hawai'i is home to a growing legion of singles and divorced people.

Fewer residents are going to college, but more have degrees.

The ranks of Hawai'i's foreign-born residents and those who speak another language in the home are on the rise.

These are some of the tidbits culled from data released today by the U.S. Census Bureau, information taken from long-form responses in the 2000 census survey.

The release includes data that confirm what many of us knew: That the 1990s was a rough decade, economically speaking.

Perhaps the most telling statistic released yesterday shows that the number of people who have reached the poverty level has risen by 43 percent, from 88,408 a decade ago to 126,154 in 2000. The number of poverty-level families increased by 38 percent, from 16,053 to 22,101.

Overall, the percentage of people below poverty line reached 11 percent of the population in 2000; families in poverty increased to 8 percent.

While houses in Hawai'i are worth more than they were in 1990, many people are paying a good deal more for their mortgages.

Median house values statewide climbed from $245,300 to $272,700 during the decade. In Honolulu, the median value of a house was up to $309,000, with Neighbor Islands values bringing the statewide value down.

Figures indicate there was a sizable jump in the number of people who pay $2,000 or more each month on their mortgages — from less than 7 percent to 24 percent of the population — as well as those whose housing costs eat up 35 percent or more of their income, from 14 percent to 22.1 percent of the population. On the other end, fewer people say housing costs take up less than 15 percent of their income, from 47 percent to 36 percent of the population.

But Michael Sklarz, a residential real estate expert who formerly worked for Prudential Locations, said the numbers don't add up for him. Many real estate prices are lower or the same as they were a decade ago, he said. Add in the fact that interest rates are lower, he said, and the census numbers don't ring true.

Sklarz speculated that the numbers are skewed by the fact that census-takers likely interviewed more owner-occupants. Ten years ago, he said, a sizable chunk of homes was owned by investors.

Hawai'i's civilian labor force rose 4.6 percent from 1990 to 2000, but the number of unemployed also rose. Nearly 36,000 people were unemployed in Hawai'i in 2000, an 86 percent increase from the same time a decade earlier.

In another indicator of the state's weak economy, the number of residents not in the labor force rose 33 percent, to 337,224.

More people also were working for themselves, with the self-employed accounting for 7.6 percent of workers compared with 6.5 percent 10 years earlier. At the same time, the percentage of private wage and salary workers dropped from 72.8 percent of the work force to 70.9 percent in 2000.

Income numbers from the census appear strong, with the median family income rising from $43,176 in 1989 to $56,951 in 1999. But economists noted yesterday that when inflation is taken into account, median family income during that time has actually declined by 2 percent.

The numbers also show that more residents of Hawai'i are foreign born — more than 72,000 moved to Hawai'i during the '90s — and that the number of naturalized citizens shot up by 41 percent and noncitizens living in the Islands increased 16.5 percent.

There was also a moderate increase in those who speak a language in the home other than English, from 254,172 to 302,125.

Gary Fuller, director of the University of Hawai'i's Population Studies Program, said the data are not surprising, considering the recent influx of foreigners to the Islands. He said there especially has been a substantial boost in immigrants from the Philippines, who are taking advantage of new Immigration and Naturalization Service family reunification rules.

In the foreign-born population, two regions of birth showed significant growth: Oceania and Latin America. Oceania, which includes the Pacific island nations, Australia and New Zealand, climbed to 13,452 from 8,237, and Latin America stood at 6,788, up from 3,396.

Fuller said Mexicans in particular are coming to Hawai'i for greater employment opportunities.

Michael Gyori, language development director for the Hui Malama Learning Center in Wailuku, Maui, said demand for English-as-a-second-language classes has increased dramatically in recent years, with Hispanics making up 50 percent of the classes, which are also being held in Kihei and Lahaina.

On education enrollment, the data indicate that fewer people are attending college or graduate school than there were a decade ago, down about 3,000, to 82,649 in 2000.

Enrollment at the state's largest institution of higher learning, the University of Hawai'i, fell systemwide from 45,870 in 1990 to 44,579 in 2000.

But Chaminade University generally experienced steady growth for much of the decade, said Peter Wolf, Chaminade's director of university relations.

"Tonight we've got our biggest graduating class ever — almost 400,'' Wolf said yesterday.

On marital status, Hawai'i shows a greater number of singles and divorced people, with a 13 percent rise in those never married from 258,903 to 292,324, and a 23.7 percent increase in divorced people, from 70,532 to 87,188.

The figures are no surprise to the leaders at First Presbyterian Church of Honolulu, which is actively searching for a pastor to serve the community's growing number of singles.

Mary Vinson, search committee chairwoman, said head pastor Dan Chun decided to hire a singles pastor after watching the congregation's group of younger adults, divorced people and widows grow for several years.

"It's a group that's growing with its own unique needs,'' Vinson said.

Advertiser staff writer Susan Hooper contributed to this report.