The True Cost of the Military in Hawaiʻi

Key Findings

Finding 1: The military’s economic benefits are overstated.

The Pentagon and state officials claim the military contributes roughly $10 billion annually to Hawaiʻi’s economy.  The real figure is $7.2 billion — nearly 30 percent less — representing 6.4 percent of GDP, not the purported 9.2 percent.

The military is not, as often claimed, one leg of a three-legged stool supporting the islands’ economy. Five industries — real estate, accommodation and food services, state and local government, retail, and health care — each represent a larger share  of state GDP.

Dollar for dollar, military spending creates approximately 5.3 jobs per $1 million invested, compared to 12.3 jobs from the same investment in health care, education, housing, food production, or energy efficiency. Because most service members are legal residents of other states who rotate off the islands every two to three years, a significant share of military payroll represents economic leakage.

Finding 2: The true costs are hidden, uncounted, and enormous.

The military’s large footprint is built primarily on Crown and Government lands acquired through the 1893 illegal overthrow and contested annexation — leased since 1964 for $1. Applying standard methodology used to value military base land worldwide, this report finds the federal government owes back rent of up to $133.7 billion in 2025 dollars, not including environmental cleanup costs.

Decades of military use of PFAS (“forever chemicals”) have contaminated soil, groundwater, nearshore waters, fish and human blood far beyond installation boundaries. Remediation at just three installations is conservatively estimated at $493 million — yet cannot fully eliminate PFAS from Hawai’i’s environment. Indirect costs, including elevated cancer rates, drinking water filtration, and lost food production, could reach into the billions. The military has not committed to any meaningful remediation.

These environmental harms fall hardest on Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders, and low-income residents — communities near military bases that are more likely to report poor health and less access to resources. Military demand for off-base housing also inflates housing costs: in 2024, military personnel occupied 10.3 percent of O’ahu’s rental units, driving up average rents by an estimated 7.1 percent and costing non-military households an additional $234.8 million — about $1,848 per household.

The U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy, premised on a forward offensive posture with capacity for deep strikes into Chinese territory, intensifies the security dilemma with China and places Hawaiʻi at direct risk as a military target. A strategy of deterrence and defense by denial—built on resilience, defensive capabilities, and geography—would lower risk and make possible a substantially smaller military footprint in Hawai’i.

Finding 3: There are better uses for this land.

Hundreds of former military installations around the world have successfully converted to housing, schools, hospitals, parks, farms, cultural sites, and renewable energy projects. Nearly 300 ʻāina-based organizations already operate across the islands, building food systems, restoring watersheds, and creating place-based livelihoods.

A future rooted in aloha ʻāina — love of the land — and guided by Native Hawaiian governance offers an economic model that is place based, intergenerational, and resilient. An āina-based economic sector, adequately resourced, could rival or exceed the military’s 6.4 percent contribution to Hawaiʻi’s GDP while generating jobs insulated from the volatility of federal defense priorities and without further harming the people and environment.