Businesses hope for a greener year

Hawaii has long had a reputation for being a bad place to do business. So it’s good news that Hawaii businesses will pay fewer taxes in 2016 as a result of lower unemployment insurance rates.

The state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations announced a 26 percent average drop in rates, meaning employers will be paying $100 less per employee on average next year. Overall, they’ll shell out $50 million less in taxes.

Tax relief, coupled with the low cost of gasoline, equates to companies increasing their bottom lines — at least in theory, but we hope in practice as well.

This is the third consecutive decrease in the amount employers have to pay into the fund. How times have changed: In December 2010, the state had to borrow $183 million to pay benefits when the Unemployment Compensation Trust fund went bankrupt.

There’s a reason it seems crowded

Do you ever get the feeling that you’re saying ”good morning” to a lot more people on your daily walk?

Perhaps you’ve been running into a few of the nearly 11,000 more people who live in the state. The number of residents rose to 1,431,603 as of July 1, up from 1,420,257 last year, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

Most of that growth was attributed to births and people moving to the islands from other countries. The data show there were 53 births per day compared with 32 deaths. An average of 28 more people moved here per day from foreign countries than left for foreign homes.

Welcome to the Aloha State!