All News & Insights

On September 28, JUST Capital convened corporate and nonprofit leaders for an Insights to Impact virtual event – Defining a JUST Job for Today’s Economy.

Across every demographic group we surveyed, whether political affiliation, race, gender, age, or income group, Americans are united in wanting companies to prioritize workers and pay a fair, living wage.

Even in challenging economic headwinds, companies performing well in JUST’s Rankings are demonstrating that following through on values does not mean sacrificing returns.

Our latest analysis finds an increase in the number of climate commitments from Russell 1000 companies alongside a dichotomy between emissions and ambition levels within industries.

Despite rhetoric that the country is incredibly polarized, there is broad consensus across all demographic and political cohorts that workers should be corporate America’s top priority.

The JUST Jobs program will build on in-depth survey research on what Americans across all demographics value most in jobs today and robust job quality frameworks, with the goal of strengthening businesses, the economy, and the livelihoods of people around the country.

In the face of the backlash against ESG and stakeholder capitalism, have companies eased off in their actions to become more just? Our latest corporate engagement data suggests not. 

Our Data review period with corporate representatives is an essential aspect of our annual Rankings, and this year participation is up 373% over 2017.

Ahead of Labor Day, let’s take stock of where things stand for the American worker. 

Republicans, Independents, and Democrats alike agree that it’s a company’s responsibility to pay its frontline workers enough to make ends meet.

It’s a story that captures almost every aspect of the business zeitgeist in America today – workers’ quest for fair pay, good jobs, and better conditions; unions; community support and survival; COVID; health and safety; climate change; ESG; shareholder activism; the corporate profit imperative; and, of course (inevitably), politics. 

We heard from Mastercard Chief Inclusion Officer, Randall Tucker, on how the company made diversity a priority for its 25,000 global employees.

American Electric Power DEI managers Kimberly Hughes and Alyvia Johnson share key lessons from the energy company’s journey to increase equity and career mobility.

With support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, JUST Capital has highlighted the top 100 companies in the Russell 1000 prioritizing DEI, career development, local employee pipelines, fair pay, and quality worker benefits.

On the third anniversary of the Business Roundtable’s embrace of stakeholder value creation, we’ve taken a closer look at how that statement’s signatories have performed over that time across our key stakeholder categories. 

Our latest analysis shows that stakeholder performance by BRT signatories in our Rankings has in fact trended upward in the last three years.

Americans are hesitant to agree that the nation’s largest companies are truly moving away from the shareholder-centric model.

Despite widespread support for increased disclosure, when we analyzed the state of human capital disclosure among America’s 1000 largest public companies, we found that overall they are currently lagging.

The ESG blowback is here, and it’s real.

Bank of America Chief Diversity & Inclusion and Talent Acquisition Officer, Cynthia Bowman, shares how the company’s taking a data-driven DEI approach to tackle systemic barriers to hiring and mobility.

HBS’s George Serafeim discusses his new book, “Purpose and Profit,” and what debates around Tesla and Danone can teach us about sustainability and ESG.

The companies topping our 2022 Workforce Equity and Mobility Ranking outpace the Russell 1000 in setting specific DEI targets, implementing fair chance hiring, cultivating apprenticeships, and offering paid training and tuition reimbursement.

The pressures inflation heaps on business does not mean stakeholder value creation needs to take a back seat. On the contrary, it can be a time for just companies to shine.

Our new polling research finds large majorities of Americans believe companies should be taking care of their workforces during high inflation.

We broke down market performance for each of the companies in our Rankings, and found that the “most just” outperformed those at the bottom of the list generally and across four of five stakeholders we measure.