Just 100 List of 2023

Tech stocks have tumbled after years of outperformance, and now there’s another setback for recent market leaders: losing the top spot on the charts. 2023 Only 100 list, an annual analysis from the nonprofit Just Capital of the issues Americans consider most important to them when it comes to corporate leadership.

american bank 1 on the 2023 Just 100 list, and it’s not alone among its peers. Banks have made the most progress of any sector in the Just 100 this year, as increased focus on worker issues and wages in particular boosted finances. Above last year’s listThe top four positions are all occupied by technology companies.

This is the first time a bank has taken the No. 1 spot in the list’s seven-year history.

Martin Whittaker, Founding CEO of Just Capital, said a bit surprised to see banks doing so well.

“They employ a lot of people who are teller and not in the ‘high paying’ tech group and they have a lot of brick and mortar assets, a high physical footprint, and a high environmental footprint,” says Whittaker. “And the big banks tend to get bogged down in controversies, which Bank of America doesn’t avoid, but you run into more consumer-oriented problems and where they’ve established themselves in the past is criminality.” en the problems that traditionally, your big tech doesn’t have ‘don’t have,’ he said.

But banks have been on an uptrend in recent years. Whittaker said: “Brian Moynihan is a true ‘integrity’ company leader. “Banks have continuously improved their game and that is the highlight,” he said of this year’s Just 100 list. “We felt pretty good, because I remember at the beginning of the rankings we would get a list of tech companies and people would say, ‘They’re rich so they can afford it. do all these things.”

Just Capital polls the American public every year and adapts its methodology for the list based on the priorities cited by the public. Pay a fair wage, enough to continue living top priority issue, for the third year in a row, accounts for 21% of companies’ scores in 2023 and has more than doubled from 9% in the past three years. While environmental, social and governance analysis has been politicized, the Just Capital poll finds broad consensus across all demographic and political groups – liberals, conservatives, High-income, low-income, men, women, younger generation, older generation and whites, blacks, and Hispanics — on issue #1.

This is the last part of the living wage measure – which rates companies based on CEO to median salaries for workers; wage violations; living wage; salary compared to peers in the industry; employee compensation; pay equity capital; and minimum wages — where banks have made big strides in 2023.

National minimum wage disclosure for all employees, a new data point included in this year’s list, accounts for about half of banks’ average rank increase in 2023. Bank of America has the second-highest minimum wage of the 951 Russell 1000 companies reviewed, at $22 per hour. (Bank of America has also pledged to continue raising the minimum wage to $25 an hour by 2025, but that is not included in the rankings.) The highest minimum wage revealed is from Bank of the First Republic, at $30 an hour. It jumped from 374th place last year to 71st, making it to the Just 100 list.

Overall, only 9% of the companies on the Russell 1000 list disclose a minimum wage.

What does the rise of Bank of America mean?

For Bank of America, the rise from 5th place last year to 1st comes after rising over the past 5 years, from 104th in 2018 to 5th in 2022.

Even with the loss of the top spot as the American public’s focus on workers grows — and at a time when big tech companies are laying off employees instead of adding workers — the tech industry looks Overall there is no significant drop in the list. In last year’s list, the top four positions were all occupied by technology, led by Alphabet. This year’s top 10 still includes 5 technology companies: NVIDIA, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Appleand clever. Alphabet fell to 12th place.

However, banking is the industry with the most representation in the Just 100 this year: 14 companies, or 34.1% of the banks in the Russell 1000, compared with six in 2022. Eight banks participate in the Just 100. compared to the average for all other industries is one or two companies entering or leaving the annual list.

It’s not just wages that motivate banks. Domestic employment and job creation, the second most important issue in the annual ranking, is an area where banks have increased their rankings by an average of 127 places.

“Bank of America is a bank that has branches around the country and is more present in Main Street American life than the big tech companies, and it shows that this is more than just a bank,” Whittaker said. field of advanced technology.

Other worker metrics have helped Bank of America: the bank offers an extensive benefits package to its employees, including 16 weeks of paid parental leave for both primary and secondary caregivers. (one of 10% of Russell’s 1000 companies that offer at least 12 weeks of paid leave for both carers), flexible work arrangements, and preventive dependent care. It conducts an equity analysis and discloses its results, one of only 14% of companies in the Russell 1000 to do so. And it is among the 34% of companies in the Russell 1000 that disclose detailed demographic data about their workforce by race and gender.

In addition to the top spot, KeyCorp up more than 200 places to finish in 70th place; financial ally nearly 300 steps to the finish line at 66th place; and Financial Truist increased from 99th place to 5th place overall in this year’s ranking.

“Bank of America has always stood out in the dialogue with stakeholders and has been at the forefront of moving the industry forward,” said Whittaker.