There were more Maui residents leaving after the devastating Maui wildfires in 2023 and fewer moving in — reducing the island’s population by more than 1,000 residents and resulting in an estimated $50 million loss in annual income for Hawaii’s economy.
New data compiled as a result of a partnership between the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization and the state Department of Taxation showed that at least 430 to 510 Maui residents who were affected by the wildfires have moved out of state, and some 370 fewer people moved to Maui from outside the state than expected.
Baybars Karacaovali, an economist at the state Department of Taxation, said he worked with UHERO assistant professor Dylan Moore to analyze confidential 2023 tax data in-house. The pair sought to determine long-term effects of the disaster, which killed at least 102 people, destroyed more than 2,000 homes and buildings, and caused declines in tourism and the broader economy.
Their research showed that about 63%-64% of the population loss came from increased out-migration, with some residents leaving for other counties in Hawaii and others leaving the state entirely. Declining in-migration compounded the impacts.
From an economic perspective, they said the data is useful because it provides a more complete picture of the toll the fire took on state revenues. The loss of $50 million of annual income for the state as a whole is estimated to have reduced Hawaii’s tax collections by more than $3 million annually and also will reduce state general excise tax and other economic activity that supports jobs.
Karacaovali said the Department of Taxation is responsible for coming up with the revenue implications for any legislation that is discussed.
“One of the recent things that is on the agenda is the tax relief for the wildfire survivors, so having this granular data enables figuring out the potential cost of providing this tax relief,” he said.
Moore said colleagues also have wanted the data for their forecasts because “population matters.”
“The fire is a more extreme case, of course, of someone being forced to leave eventually, but it seems to me that it gets at some of the same concerns that people here have about challenges with respect to staying in Hawaii more generally,” he said. “I think it would be important anywhere because of potential losses to economic activity, because of potential losses to tax revenue. … Everywhere in the world, people have concerns about people being displaced from their homes, but perhaps those concerns are felt even more viscerally here than in some other places.”
Moore said another key data takeaway is that “a lot of fire-impacted people are still in Maui,” which “suggests there is an opportunity to get them to stay. And so I think this makes it all the more important to figure out some of the housing challenges that are confronting Maui and confronting the state as a whole.”
He said he didn’t know whether Maui’s fire-related population changes had peaked but that evidence from fires on the main- land suggest that the out-migration effect generally happens within the first two years.
“We might be at peak or midpoint, but I would not expect that it is going to play out over the next three to five years,” Moore said.
One in 5 fire-affected households is seriously considering leaving Maui, according to a survey by the Hawai‘i State Rural Health Association.
Housing shortages, job losses and emotional strain are among the key struggles Maui’s fire survivors continue to face.
Moore referred to the Maui population data as a preliminary estimate and said that limitations from relying on state 2023 tax filings to track migration suggest that the actual impact could be even greater. For instance, more than 600 displaced households that filed taxes before the fires have not filed since, and others never filed tax returns between 2021 and 2023.
“It’s not a perfect measure but it’s a useful measure,” he said.
Impact of Maui wildfires on population
A study analyzed 5,089 people who lived in homes deemed unsafe due to fire damage.
>> 1,420 residents relocated within the Lahaina ZIP code (for example, West Maui).
>> 1,058 residents moved elsewhere on Maui.
>> 369 residents left Maui altogether, including 242 who moved out of state and 127 who relocated to other counties in Hawaii.
>> 370 fewer people moved to Maui from outside the state.
Source: UHERO, state Department of Taxation
