Target 1.1: End extreme poverty everywhere
By 2030, eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere, currently measured as people living on less than $1.25 a day
Owners voting their values help. Others must carry most of it.
Why shareholder democracy is helpful
Almost 700 million people, 8.5 percent of humanity, live in extreme poverty, concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa. The World Bank identifies more and better jobs plus public investment in education and basic services as the pathway out. Governments and aid therefore sit on the critical path. Corporate conduct matters through the wages and purchasing practices of multinationals whose supply chains reach the poorest workers. Shareholder proposals at Amazon in 2024, on pay gaps, warehouse conditions and freedom of association, show the lever exists. That lever bears mainly on formal-sector workers in richer markets. We found no documented corporate lobbying obstacle acting as the blocking constraint for this target. Owners help at the margin, while governments and aid must deliver the outcome.
How this was scoredHelpful
Helpful. Owners voting their values help. Others must carry most of it.
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
What civil society organizations are helping owners on this
Runs the investor statement and member engagements urging US companies to adopt, disclose and implement a living wage policy and to work with workers, unions and franchisees to raise pay.
Coordinated the first shareholder resolution at a listed company seeking Living Wage accreditation, covering subcontracted cleaners and security staff as well as direct employees.
Shareholders file Living Wage resolution at Sainsbury's, ShareAction, 2022-03
4 campaigns on record
Report on Amazon's respect for freedom of association and collective bargaining.
With Shareholder Association for Research and Education
Result: Not approved at the 22 May 2024 annual meeting, as Item 12 on the proxy: 2,398,484,693 for, 5,141,991,512 against, 51,835,210 abstaining and 1,260,267,192 broker non-votes, which is 31.8 percent of the votes cast for and against.
We found no change at Amazon following the vote documented in the pages we opened. The coalition's own account of that season says Amazon has remained reticent to engage with shareholders about their concerns and consistently opposes all environmental and social proposals put on its proxy.
The 2024 Amazon Proposals, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, 2024-05
Commission an independent audit of the working conditions and treatment that Amazon warehouse workers face, which the proponent argues is needed to resolve the company's injury record and the job design, surveillance and quota practices behind it.
Result: Not approved at the 22 May 2024 annual meeting, as Item 17 on the proxy: 2,356,031,178 for, 5,185,496,222 against, 50,784,015 abstaining and 1,260,267,192 broker non-votes, which is 31.2 percent of the votes cast for and against.
We found no audit commissioned and no change at Amazon following the vote documented in the pages we opened. The coalition's own account of that season says Amazon has remained reticent to engage with shareholders about their concerns and consistently opposes all environmental and social proposals put on its proxy.
The 2024 Amazon Proposals, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, 2024-05
Take steps toward paying a living wage to direct and contract workers: adopt, disclose and implement a living wage policy commitment covering pay practices and lobbying alignment; end the payment of subminimum wages, such as to tipped restaurant workers; disclose wage-setting strategies and compensation metrics; perform and disclose cost-benefit analyses of wage increases; and give the compensation committee responsibility for overseeing pay practices at all levels. Investors ask companies to work with all workers, with labour unions and with franchisee and subcontracted operations.
Result: The statement, 'Investor Support for a Living Wage for U.S. Workers', was released on 14 November 2023 and has over 125 signatories representing over 4 trillion US dollars in assets. It remains open, with the coalition accepting new signatories on a rolling basis.
The coalition's own record of what followed, under the same banner: on 3 June 2024, investors called on Walmart ahead of its shareholder meeting to address worker safety and racial inequity; on 24 September 2025, shareholders commended McDonald's for committing to end subminimum wages, calling it a model for the restaurant industry; and on 11 March 2026 investors called for a strong global worker convention to protect gig and platform workers. We found no figure for how many companies adopted a living wage policy commitment in response to the statement itself.
Commit to paying the real Living Wage to all workers, including third-party contracted staff such as cleaners and security guards, and become an accredited Living Wage employer.
With Legal and General Investment Management, Actiam, Fidelity International, Nest, Brunel Pension Partnership, Islington Pension Fund, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Guy's and St Thomas' Foundation, Friends Provident Foundation, HSBC Asset Management, 108 individual shareholders, among them Sainsbury's workers, two MPs and a barrister
Result: 16.7 percent of investors voted for it at the annual general meeting on 7 July 2022, with a further 2.6 percent abstaining. It was the United Kingdom's first Living Wage resolution, tabled by ten investors managing 2.2 trillion pounds, among them the country's largest asset manager and its largest workplace pension scheme, alongside 108 individual shareholders. The Sainsbury's board and both major proxy advisers, Glass Lewis and ISS, urged investors to vote against it.
The resolution moved the company before the vote. In April 2022 Sainsbury's announced a pay uplift for London staff so that all directly employed staff earned the Living Wage, an estimated 19,000 workers receiving a rise. It stayed on the ballot because investors also wanted subcontracted staff such as cleaners and security guards guaranteed the Living Wage and a long-term commitment from the company. More than half of the FTSE 100 were accredited Living Wage employers at the time, but no supermarket was.
Sainsbury's Living Wage resolution achieves significant shareholder support, ShareAction, 2022-07
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.