Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire
Tuesday, April 29, 1997
Personal incomes in Hawaii rose a scant 1.7 percent last year, the slowest wage growth in the nation, the U.S. Commerce Department reported. Isle income growth
slowest in nationPer capita income in Hawaii last year was $25,159, the eleventh highest in the nation. But the 1.7 percent growth from 1995 gave Hawaii the dubious distinction of being one of only two states where incomes failed to keep pace with the national inflation rate of 2.2 percent for 1996. Alaska, where incomes rose 2.1, was the other slow-growth state, the agency said yesterday.
For the nation as a whole, per capita income grew 4.5 percent to $24,231. The growth was down from 5.2 percent in 1995 but it nevertheless was more than double the inflation rate as measured by the department's personal consumption expenditures index.
The state Public Utilities Commission has approved a small rate increase which will raise monthly residential electric bills on Maui, Molokai and Lanai less than a dollar. Maui Electric gets OK
to raise rates a bitThe 0.16 percent increase will give Maui Electric Co. an extra $205,000 in revenues this year. The order yesterday also made permanent the $3.66 million interim increase approved in January 1996.
Maui Electric in February 1995 asked the PUC for a $23.25 million rate increase. But negotiations with the state reduced that amount to $4.97 million, and the commission granted the interim increase.
NEW YORK -- IBM Corp.'s board today approved raising the company's common stock dividend by 14 percent and said it would buy back up to $3.5 billion of the shares. The world's biggest computer company said it would raise its quarterly payout to stockholders to 40 cents a common share from 35 cents. In other news . . .