Target 10.1: Income growth of the bottom 40 percent
By 2030, progressively achieve and sustain income growth of the bottom 40 per cent of the population at a rate higher than the national average
Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
Why shareholder democracy is necessary
Public companies are the largest wage-setters in the formal economy. Suppose every listed employer in retail, food service, logistics and care treated income growth for its lowest-paid workers as a core objective. Suppose its trade associations lobbied for rather than against minimum-wage increases. A large part of bottom-40 income growth in rich economies would follow. The National Restaurant Association and NFIB formally opposed the federal Raise the Wage Act. Investors representing more than 4 trillion dollars have already asked companies for living wages. The reach of that lever is bounded, however. S&P 500 companies employ about 18 percent of U.S. workers, and worldwide almost 58 percent of workers hold informal jobs that no shareholder vote touches. Pensions, transfers and taxation set the rest of bottom-40 income, and those belong to governments. Owners therefore supply a necessary input through wages and lobbying. Governments and the informal economy hold the larger share of the outcome.
How this was scoredNecessary
Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
- Living Wage, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, 2025 (page current; McDonald's item dated 2025-09-24)
- National Restaurant Association Opposes H.R. 582, 'Raise the Wage Act', National Restaurant Association, 2019-03-05
- U.S. House Votes Against Small Businesses by Passing Raise the Wage Act Legislation, National Federation of Independent Business, 2021-02-27
- Employment in S&P 500 companies is 18% of total US employment, Apollo Academy, 2024-04-30
- Decent Work Reality Check: Informality Across the World of Work, ILOSTAT (International Labour Organization), 2025
What civil society organizations are helping owners on this
Organised an investor statement signed by 136 institutional investors representing 4.5 trillion dollars calling on US companies in retail, restaurant, hospitality and gig sectors to pay a living wage.
Files living wage proposals and runs vote-no campaigns at large low-wage employers, arguing that below-living wages externalise costs onto diversified portfolios.
3 campaigns on record
Adopt and disclose a living wage philosophy.
Result: Withdrawn.
Vote against the re-election of board chair Gregory Penner because Walmart pays starting wages of about 13 dollars an hour against a living wage of about 23 dollars an hour.
Result: not stated in source
Establish company wage policies consistent with fiduciary duties that give workers earnings sufficient to meet basic family needs.
With Legal & General Investment Management America
Result: not stated in source
The SEC rejected Walmart's attempt to exclude the proposal, so it went to a shareholder vote.
Walmart faces vote on 'living wage' proposal, Governance Intelligence, 2024
Related subjects on other maps
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is UN Sustainable Development Goals's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.