This Hawaiian City Has The Highest Jobless Rate In America

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Dec 5, 8:34AM EST

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This Hawaiian City Has The Highest Jobless Rate In America — © ShaneMyersPhoto / iStock via Getty Images

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Released its METROPOLITAN AREA EMPLOYMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT — OCTOBER 2020, the latest month available. The U.S. jobless rate for the month was 6.9%, not seasonally adjusted. Of America’s 389 metropolitan areas, the jobless rate was up in 384 compared to October 2019. Of these of 124 metropolitan areas had unemployment rates of less than 5% percent and 16 had rates of 10% or more.

Only one of these metro areas has an unemployment rate of over 20%. In Kahului-Wailuku-Lahaina, Hawaii it reached 22.5%.

Kahului-Wailuku-Lahaina ranks 258th among all U.S. metros based on population at 167,488. It is made up of two counties–Kalawao County and Maui County. The MSA covers 1,161.5 square miles. It also covers another over 1,000 square miles of water. There are 144.2 people per square mile.

The median age in the metro is 41.7 years which is 10% higher than the national average.

The median household income is $80,754, which is about the same as the rest of Hawaii, but 25% above the national average.

The median value of owner-occupied homes is $697,900, which is well over twice the U.S. figure.

Educational levels are about the same as the rest of the country. Residents who have a high school degree or higher are at 90.6%. Those with a bachelor’s degree or better is 27.7%, somewhat below the national average.

With a population with a strong demographic base, what has happened to the job situation which makes it so high? The answer in a word is “tourism”. Hawaii is like many other states in that its governments and healthcare systems are among the largest employers. However, Hawaiian Airlines, Kapalua Resort, Outrigger Resorts, and Aston Hotels & Resorts are among the 25 largest employers. Other hotels and resorts employ hundreds of people each.

Local TV station KHON reports, “According to the Hawaii Tourism Authority, hotel room revenues statewide fell by 88% in October, and occupancy declined to 19.7% compared to the same time last year.” The new surge in COVID-19 will almost certainly make that worse.

The BLS report about metro populations shows how wide the spread of unemployment is among cities, and how high the figure is in Kahului-Wailuku-Lahaina:

Kahului-Wailuku-Lahaina, HI, had the highest unemployment rate in October,22.5 percent, followed by El Centro, CA, 18.8 percent. Ames, IA, and Burlington-South Burlington, VT, had the lowest unemployment rates, 1.9 percent and 2.1 percent, respectively.

As the number of COVID-19 infections spreads, not just in the U.S. but around the world, tourism.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.