Here Are The Richest Places In Hawaii, Per The Latest Census Data

Hawaii, like Alaska, is part of the non-contiguous United States. And like Alaska, Hawaii has a very high cost of living; indeed, Hawaii is routinely ranked as the most expensive state in the U.S. in yearly publications of cost of living indices by organizations like the Council for Community and Economic Research (C2ER). As such, incomes in Hawaii tend to be higher on average than in the rest of the U.S.

Recently, we’ve been analyzing states, identifying their richest cities based on data from the Census Bureau’s 2023 American Community Survey. This study analyzed 163 cities — what the Census Bureau designates as “places” — in Hawaii that had complete data from the Census Bureau, in terms of their median household income, mean (average) household income, median home value, and median property taxes paid per year, to come up with a list of the 50 richest cities in the state.

Read on to find out what the richest city in Hawaii is, plus the top 10 wealthiest cities in the state overall.

What Are the Richest Cities in Hawaii?

In order to compile this list of the richest cities in Hawaii, we sourced key financial data from the Census Bureau’s 2023 American Community Survey. Wielding these datasets, we put together a four-factor scoring system to help identify the wealthiest cities in Hawaii:

• Median household income
• Mean (average) household income
• Median home value
• Median property taxes paid

There are a few important conditions and provisos about what the Census Bureau does with its data. For a number of factors, the Census figures have upper limits, so there’s no exact value for certain factors. For example, for median household income, the Census Bureau has an upper limit of “$250,000+”. For median home value, the upper limit is “$2,000,000+”. For median property taxes paid, the upper limit is “$10,000+”. For these reasons, the mean household income (which is the same as average household income) dataset is crucial because the Census Bureau has exact figures for it. All four of these metrics were scored, added up, and then ranked by the cities’ combined scores.

Another aspect of the Census to point out, and is particularly relevant to Hawaii, is the Census-designated place — CDP. The Census, more or less, treats CDPs as cities — their terminology is “place” — and so will this list of the richest cities in Hawaii. But if you see cities on this list that you see as, say, neighborhoods, you’re not wrong; they just happen to be treated as cities by the Census Bureau.

You’ll find a table detailing the top 10 richest cities in Hawaii and their respective dollar figures for each metric, below:

The No. 1 richest city in Hawaii in this ranking is Mākaha Valley, a CDP in Honolulu County, just to the northeast of Mākaha. When you’re home to a world-class golf course, then there’s a chance you’re a wealthy city, and Mākaha Valley is home to the Mākaha Valley Country Club. Mākaha Valley is not a large place at all, having only 46 total households. But the households that exist here are quite wealthy, having a median household income in excess of $250,000 per year. The mean household income is $312,548. The median home value, as reported by the Census Bureau, is more than $1.5 million.

The No. 2 richest place in Hawaii is Makena, a CDP in the deep southwest of Maui island, in Maui County. Like Mākaha Valley, this is a small place, consisting of only 76 households, which are rather beautiful. The biggest industries by employment, according to Data USA, in Makena are Real Estate & Rental & Leasing (40.9% of the workforce), Construction (25% of the workforce), and Educational Services (18.2% of the workforce). The median home value reported by the Census Bureau is over $2 million, while the median property taxes paid per household exceeds $10,000 a year. The median household income is high, $148,750, but not nearly as high as No. 1 Mākaha Valley’s figure. The average household income in Makena is $246,570.

The third richest place in Hawaii is Kapalua, which is on Maui Island like Makena but a ways away from the latter. Kapalua is home to luxurious resorts like the Mauian Hotel, Montage Kapalua Bay, the Ritz-Carlton Maui, Kapalua, among others. Being home to several resorts, the employment breakdown for Kapalua makes sense: The three largest industries by employment are Accommodation & Food Services (25.4% of the workforce), Real Estate & Rental & Leasing (16% of the workforce), and Retail Trade (11.6% of the workforce), according to Data USA. Kapalua is small, but certainly larger than the first two places on our list, having a total 163 households compared to Mākaha Valley’s 46 and Makena’s 76. The median household income in Kapalua is $178,750, which is the second highest on the list. It also has the second highest mean household income at $289,657. The reported median home value is over $1.46 million, but houses there sell for multiple millions of dollars.

The unincorporated community and CDP of Launiupoko comes in as the fourth richest place in Hawaii. Located on the western side of Maui, Launiupoko has 250 total households, which have a median household income of $171,875. Interestingly, the average household income is not much higher than the median, at $185,175 versus $171,875. The median home value reported in the Census exceeds $2 million, though thanks to Hawaii’s generally low property tax rates, a typical household pays a median of $4,625 a year in property taxes.

The No. 5 richest place in Hawaii is the more sizable CDP of Maunawili, which has 697 total households and a population of over 2,000. Maunawili is on the island of Oʻahu, tucked behind the city of Kailua. In terms of employment, Maunawili’s industry breakdown is unlike most of the rich cities on our list; according to Data USA, the top three industries by employment are Health Care & Social Assistance (18.8% of the workforce), Public Administration (12.2% of the workforce), and Educational Services (9.98% of the workforce). The median household income here is $169,375, with an average household income that’s a full $30,000 higher than the median. According to Zillow, the median home value is around $1.5 million. Again, thanks to Hawaii’s comparatively low property tax rates, the median property taxes paid by households in Maunawili is only $3,724 per year.