Nicole Woo is the senior policy analyst at the Hawaiʻi Appleseed Center for Law & Economic Justice and lobbied for the Dodd-Frank Act when she worked at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. She says it’s encouraging that several companies in Hawaiʻi have pay disparities that are lower than the national median.

As of May 28, the median pay ratio across more than 2,000 corporations was 67 to 1, according to the Equilar CEO Pay Tracker.

Woo noted that other states and municipalities are considering legislation to penalize companies if their pay disparities are too high and thinks that’s something worth considering in Hawaiʻi.

“Working class people and middle class people are struggling and any way we can encourage corporations to transfer money from people at the top to everyday workers could be helpful,” she says.