Has Covid Killed Hawaii's Equilibrium (The State of the State of Hawaii)

Show Guest Don Wallace is contributing editor of Honolulu Magazine. He has worked 40 years in journalism in New York and Hawaii covering business, culture, food, sports, politics, and written four books. The Guest  discusses Hawaii's persistent sense of equilibrium in spite of being among the top three most expensive places to live in the US and distant from the nation's major economy-driving centers. Labor history from a plantation society has kept down wages, and even college-educated workers have lesser salaries compared to the mainland. Hawaii's inflation rate usually slightly exceeds that of the mainland, while the state's economic growth lags a point behind.  However, the pandemic has revealed a different side of the state than we are all used to.  The question is: Why does it feel different now?  Is Hawaii's equilibrium now gone?