Child prostitution in Honolulu

“Nationally, the average age for entry into prostitution is 14. Sisters Offering Support (SOS), a non-profit group working to prevent and intervene in prostitution, estimates there are 1,500 to 5,000 people engaged in prostitution in Honolulu, with several hundred of them minors,” according to the 26 Feb. edition of the Star Bulletin..

“The number of local youth being recruited has been increasing”, said Kelly Hill, a former prostitute and founder of SOS. “The pimps have been busy”. Ms. Hill gave a talk at a conference on Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Youth in Hawaii this week at Nuuanu YMCA.

It takes courage and an ultra-sense of care to engage in offering assistance to prostitutes who want out of the flesh industry under a program established by Ms. Hill. And she definitely deserves the accolades of Hawaii’s State and national leaders for bringing an awareness of a growing community problem which need not include tender teenage girls in Honolulu battling bouts of low self-esteem.
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Popularity on minimum wage

It’s a growing national problem that isn’t solely the preserve of the NMI as detractors have made it to appear in their dedicated bashing of these isles. It’s in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Lake Tahoe, Reno, Atlantic City, Las Vegas, New York City, Honolulu, New Orleans, Indianapolis, and all other major cities. Popularity of Minimum Wage “What accounts for the popularity in the minimum wage?” asked Mr. Thomas MaCurdy in an essay. Mr. MaCurdy is a senior fellow at Hoover Institution and a professor of economics at Stanford University.

There are two beliefs, he said. “First, that raising the minimum wage is an effective anti-poverty program and, second, that the minimum wage imposes little social cost. Anyone holding either view should acquaint themselves with the facts.

“When considering the first belief, understand that most low-wage workers are not in poor families and that the bulk of the increased earnings attributable to raising the minimum wage does not accrue to low-income families. According to a variety of professional studies, only about one in four low-wage workers resides in families in the bottom 20 percent of the income distribution, and fewer than $1 in $5 of the additional earnings goes to families who rely on low-wage compensation as their primary source of income. Moreover, as a pretax increase, many of the additional earnings are taxed away as Social Security contributions or as state and federal income taxes.

“This brings us to the second common belief: Minimum wage hikes are manna from heaven — wages will rise and no one will bear the cost. This, of course, cannot be true. No one argues that artificially raising wages makes the economy more productive and actually boosts total national income. So the logic is inescapable. If low-wage workers receive more income after a minimum wage hike, someone must be paying for it.

“When pressed, most minimum wage advocates suggest that “slight” price increases will be the primary source for paying for legislated wage increases. They heartily reject the view that low-wage workers will pay much directly through job loss or lowered employee benefits. An alternative is that firms will pay for those wage increases through lower profits, but it is unlikely that firms would bear significant profit losses without eliminating jobs. In relying on higher prices for covering mandated increases in wages, job loss can be kept to a minimum.

“But then the question becomes, Who pays the higher prices to cover costs? A comprehensive analysis of the 1996 federal hike in the minimum wage estimates that prices rose on a broad range of commodities to fund this increase and that families of all income groups purchase these goods. Families in the lowest 20 percent of the income distribution pay annually an average of $61 in higher commodity costs, whereas families in the highest 20 percent pay only $150 more. The implied coverage of costs is at least as regressive as a conventional sales tax. Moreover, nearly 75 percent of poor families receive no additional earnings, but all paid higher costs following the minimum wage.

“In fact, then, increasing the minimum wage amounts to a policy that artificially raises prices in an income-regressive manner, using the proceeds to pay higher earnings to workers in one in four families selected irrespective of their income. One wonders why such a policy enjoys the popularity it does.”