COVID-19 and the economic crisis it has spawned have made it more urgent than ever that our leaders live up to the promises made at the beginning of the session to prioritize economic justice.

We desperately need to restructure our recovery with a clear goal of returning to an almost forgotten way of life — to a time when almost half of our families didn’t live from paycheck to paycheck; a time when many thousands of our working families weren’t trapped in mostly low-wage jobs with limited opportunity for advancement; a time when affordable housing was affordable and periodic wage increases kept up with the escalating cost of living.

I keep thinking we are going to waste this chance by following our legislative leaders into the same tomorrow from which we yearn to escape.

Over the past 15 years, the Legislature and governor have repeatedly taken an intentional pass on adopting meaningful economic justice reforms that were supported by data, successful models and testimony. Our leaders have repeatedly dodged responsibility for creating policies that would begin the long overdue realignment of economic priorities.

This happened in the face of the growing wage disparities with wage stagnation, a dramatic increase in the cost of living, especially for affordable housing, and clear inequities in our tax system that charge low and moderate wage earners at a rate almost twice those in the top 20% of income earners. Even after repeatedly clearing the various committees over the years, bills to address these inequities were killed by legislative leaders in the final conference process.

But the 2020 session would be different, we were told in January. The governor and legislative leadership promised true progress toward economic justice. They jointly announced their top priority was to help low-wage earners by finally passing a meaningful minimum wage bill and making our state’s Earned Income Tax Credit program (EITC) fully refundable. This was a historic moment marking a promise to begin making true progress on addressing economic justice reforms. The economic collapse that was to follow, has made this promise even more urgent.

Despite being considered in each of the last 15 sessions, our minimum wage was increased only five times. Because of the repeated decisions to defer any increase, our minimum wage is one of lowest in the nation even though Hawaii is the most expensive of states. When increases did happen, our lawmakers chose not to include an annual adjustment as currently required in 17 other states thereby ensuring our minimum wage would stay low.

The same pattern of legislative avoidance was repeated in the 15-year effort to adopt a state EITC. The program is patterned on the successful efforts operated in 27 other states and is considered the most successful anti-poverty program in the country, lifting hundreds of thousands of low-wage families out of poverty each year. After repeatedly being approved by legislative committees, the leadership permitted adoption of the EITC program without provisions that help the lowest-income workers. To fund the bill, the leadership justified the expense of the program by reinstituting a surcharge on the incomes of the wealthiest residents, which raised $70 million. The restricted program provided only $15 million of tax relief to low-wage families. It could have delivered nearly twice that amount had it been made fully refundable.

It’s time for the leadership to live up to the promise made at the beginning of the session to making economic justice a top priority. Life has only become ever more challenging for our workers and their families.

Victor Geminiani founded and recently retired as executive director of the Hawaii Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice.