Today is Equal Pay Day. Its date differs every year and is dependent upon how far into the new year women must keep working just to earn what their male counterparts earned in the previous calendar year, according to the National Committee on Pay Equity.
With that in mind, Arjuna Capital and Proxy Impact have released their sixth annual Racial and Gender Pay Scorecard. The 2023 scorecard assigns a grade to 68 American companies based on their pay equity disclosures, grading them across five categories, which are:
- Racial Pay Gap
- Gender Pay Gap
- UK Pay Gap
- Coverage
- Commitment
The good news? For the first time in the scorecard’s history, one company received an “A+” rating: Target. The bad news? Twenty-five companies—over a third of the list—received an “F” rating. Here’s how the top and bottom companies rate based on which industry the company falls into.
- Best in Finance: Mastercard, Bank of New York Mellon, American Express, and Citigroup all recede a grade of “A.” Wells Fargo and Bank of America received a “B” grade.
- Worst in Finance: MetLife, Hartford Financial Services, Goldman Sachs, Lincoln National, Arthur J. Gallagher, and Charles Schwab received an “F” grade.
- Best in Technology/Communications: Microsoft, Adobe, and Visa all received an “A.” Apple, Verizon, and Disney received a “B.” What is notable for Disney is last year the company received an “F.”
- Worst in Technology/Communications: Alphabet, AT&T, HP, Oracle, and Netflix all received an “F.” They may be leaders in their fields, but not when it comes to pay equity disclosures.
- Best in Consumer: Target was the only company, in any category, to receive an “A+” score in the Scorecard’s history. Starbucks, Lowe’s, Best Buy, and Home Depot all received an “A.”
- Worst in Consumer: Colgate, Wyndham, Walmart, TJX Companies, Costco, Marriott, and Kroger all received an “F.”
- Best in Healthcare: Pfizer, Biogen, Cigna, and Intuitive Surgical received an “A.”
- Worst in Healthcare: IDEXX Laboratories, Intuitive Surgical, DaVita Inc., Quest Diagnostics, and DexCom received an “F.”
Arjuna Capital’s and Proxy Impact’s 2023 Scorecard ends with the urging of more companies to become transparent on their pay equity and work toward closing any gaps.
“Closing the racial and gender pay gap is not just a question of fairness, it’s a question of good business. Companies face reputational, regulatory, legal and financial risk from racial and gender pay inequity,” the report’s authors write. “Improving pay equity also presents an opportunity to improve companies’ ability to attract, retain, and place more minorities and women in higher paying jobs and senior management roles.”
You can read Arjuna Capital’s and Proxy Impact’s full 2023 Racial and Gender Pay Scorecard here.
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