TARGET CORPORATION | Gender and Racial Pay Gap - Quantitative Assessment at TARGET CORPORATION

Status
Withdrawn
AGM date
Previous AGM date
Resolution details
Company ticker
TGT
Lead filer
Resolution ask
Report on or disclose
ESG theme
  • Social
ESG sub-theme
  • Diversity, equity & inclusion (DEI)
  • Remuneration or pay
Type of vote
Shareholder proposal
Filer type
Shareholder
Company sector
Consumer Discretionary
Company HQ country
United States
Resolved clause
Shareholders request that Target publish annually, quantitative data assessing its gender and racial pay gap, at reasonable expense and excluding proprietary information. Racial and gender pay gaps are defined as the difference between non-minority and minority/male and female median earnings expressed as a percentage of non-minority/male earnings. A report adequate for investors to assess company performance would include the percentage median gender and racial pay gap, and would include base, bonus and equity compensation.
Whereas clause
Pay inequity persists across race and gender. The 2019 U.S. Census data on median earnings for full-time, year-round workers found that women made 82 percent of that of their male counterparts.1 The gap for African America and Latina women is 63 percent and 57 percent. At the current rate, women will not reach pay parity until 2059, African American women until 2130, and Latina women until 2224.2 Research from Morgan Stanley, McKinsey, and Robeco Sam suggests more gender diverse leadership leads to superior stock price performance and return on equity. McKinsey states, ‘‘the business case for the advancement and promotion of women is compelling.’’ Best practices include ‘‘tracking and eliminating gender pay gaps.’’ Australia, Austria, Belgium, Columbia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom mandate gender pay gap reporting in some form, demonstrating that publication of such data is feasible and informative. The U.S. gender pay gap is 18.5 percent placing it fifth largest among 37 ranked countries.3 The U.S. minority pay gap is also significant. In the third quarter of 2021, Black workers had a 23 percent, and Hispanic workers a 24 percent wage gap of what White workers earned.4 Assessing if a company has a gender or racial pay gap requires analyzing both equal pay and equal opportunity. This is done using adjusted and unadjusted (median) pay data. Adjusted equal pay data aims to compare equal pay for equal work, but some corporate reports have omitted key employee groups such as C-suite employees where the highest level of gender and racial pay gaps occur. Unadjusted median pay gap data—a key metric used by the U.S. Census Bureau, Department of Labor, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and International Labor Organization—addresses the structural bias women and underrepresented minorities face regarding job opportunity and pay, particularly when white men hold most higher paying jobs. Target states its commitment to pay equity, but only provides a general description of its adjusted pay criteria (without providing any quantitative pay data that might help identify gaps) and does not provide any unadjusted median pay gap data. Leading large-cap companies across industry sectors including Apple, Starbucks, Pfizer and Citigroup, among others, have publicly committed to pay equity and published the results of gender and/or racial pay gap assessments. Investors seek quantitative, comparable data to understand the effectiveness of Target’s pay gap policies.

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