Honolulu residents mixed about state’s economic recovery, Hawaii Poll shows

Many Oahu residents are more optimistic than Hawaii experts about when the state economy will return to normal, a new poll suggests.

Results from The Honolulu Star- Advertiser Hawaii Poll conducted last week show that 44% of Honolulu adults believe the state economy will be back to normal in two years or less, including 7% who expect a full recovery to take less than a year.

Another 43% believe such recovery is more than two years away.

The University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization last month forecast that it will take more than three years — until after 2023 — for the state economy to regain the level it was at last year or even the year before.

The state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism has the same timetable as UHERO in its own forecast published in late August.

Clarence Senarighi, a retired Army security specialist who lives in Salt Lake, is among the more optimistic half of survey respondents. He expects a year or so of ups and downs for the economy before a return to normal two years from now as tourism gradually rebuilds.

“It all depends on the tourists,” he said. “We’ve put a lot of emphasis on tourism in our economy.”

Ron Gallegos, a financial services manager who lives in Foster Village, also picked the two-year time frame for a full economic rebound.

“Hawaii is still going to be the ideal destination when (lots of) tourists start traveling again,” he said.

Gallegos noted the initial modest rise in visitor arrivals that began last week with Hawaii’s new pre-arrival COVID-19 testing protocol in effect, and he expects gains to continue.

Gallegos, 60, also anticipates that there will be a crash in Hawaii’s housing market within 18 to 24 months driven by foreclosures that affect the state’s economic rebound.

“A lot of people are behind on their mortgages right now,” he said.

The poll suggests that a slightly higher number of Oahu residents are now part of the most optimistic bunch when it comes to economic rebound expectations.

Some 27% of respondents expect Hawaii’s economy will return to normal in one year or less, up from 24% in a similar poll conducted in July just before new daily coronavirus case counts jumped consistently to triple-digit figures.

The new poll also shows that significantly more people are now unsure about how long the local economy will take to fully rebound. In the July poll, 5% of respondents said they weren’t sure about this timetable. That compares with 13% in the new poll.

For folks who want to monitor estimated weekly changes in the local economy, UHERO has a running gauge at 808ne.ws/2FEZZ30 based on about 20 sets of data that include counts of open businesses, payroll processing volume, unemployment benefit claims, airplane passenger arrivals and how much time people spend at different locations such as home, stores and on the road.

UHERO’s “economic pulse” shows what percentage of the economy has been restored since it cratered in April following impacts from business and travel shutdowns that began in March amid the pandemic.

As of Oct. 10, Hawaii’s economy has regained 37% of what was lost since the April trough, the gauge said.

The new Hawaii Poll, which was conducted by Washington, D.C.-based Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy, also asked about job losses, which is an economic factor.

The poll asked whether each respondent or anyone in their household had been laid off or furloughed from their job as a result of the pandemic. Responses were split 35% yes and 65% no.

Senarighi, 70, was among those who answered no to this question. He retired two years ago and said his family feels fortunate given that his wife also retired around the same time from a job at the Pacific Beach Hotel.

Hawaii’s unemployment rate, according to the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, peaked at 23.6% in April and has receded since then to 12.5% in August, the most recent month calculated. The rate in recent years before the pandemic was between 2% and 3%.

The Hawaii Poll was conducted Oct. 12 to Wednesday by telephone and included results from 625 registered voters on Oahu selected at random.

Mason-Dixon said there is a 95% probability that results would be within 4 percentage points if all registered voters on Oahu were surveyed.

HI1020Poll Copy Economy Que… by Honolulu Star-Advertiser