Issue Advocacy

Our approach

We collaborate with the broader retail industry as well as trade and business organizations to ensure our legislative, public policy and regulatory priorities reflect the needs of our business and industry.

We’ve shared expertise and engaged in lobbying activities on several issues important to our company and the retail industry at large. They include tax and labor policies, trade, privacy, product safety and assortment, extended producer responsibility, organized retail crime, supply chain management and and workforce issues.

Investing in our team

Our team members make our success possible and help make Target a great place to work and shop. Whether someone is looking for a long-term career, seasonal work or anything in between, Target is a place where they can discover a good job, great people and continued growth.

To attract and retain talent, we foster a culture where we care for each other, support the growth of our people, and win together as a team. We have a long history of investing in market-leading pay and benefits, as well as learning and development opportunities to help team members reach their fullest potential and create a rewarding career experience.

We offer our team top-tier pay and benefits, including a starting wage between $15 and $24 per hour, tuition-free education assistance, health and well-being benefits, and paid time off. We surround our team with people and leaders who value and support each other to build a future they’re excited about.

Our commitment to our team continues when we work in partnership with elected officials and key stakeholders at all levels of the government to share the potential impacts of employment and workforce proposals on our team, operations and guests.

Trade

Our stores are exclusively located in the United States. While over half of what we sell is made in America, we source products from over 30 countries around the globe. Our multicategory portfolio and the investments we’ve made across the supply chain enable us to reliably provide the goods and affordable prices American families expect.

We support efforts to address unfair trade practices to support American factory workers, while remaining committed to providing the products and value consumers expect.

Protecting privacy

Target knows that we must be good stewards of consumer data to maintain our guests’ trust and provide them with the shopping experience they expect.Our goal is to give our guests the personalized shopping experience they seek, while also respecting concerns about how their personal information is handled.

We are transparent about how we collect, use and share guests’ personal information and provide shoppers with options for limiting marketing or other uses of their data.

We balance concerns about sharing of personal information with the understanding that some sharing with vendors or third parties is needed to  provide guests with ways to save on their purchases, personalize offers and facilitate transactions.

We seek to be a constructive partner in the development of federal and state privacy laws with the objective of providing the balance needed by our guests both for their information to be appropriately handled and for their shopping experience to meet their expectations.

Payments

Target processes over 3 billion payments annually, giving us broad insight into the payment options consumers want and use. We continually invest in payment innovations, including mobile payment technologies, to provide fast, easy and secure payment options to our more than 30 million weekly guests who shop in our stores and across digital channels.

Payment acceptance is our third highest operating cost, and our public policy advocacy focuses on legislation and regulation that reduces costs and encourages competition and innovation. Target advocates for legislation to increase competition among credit card networks, and we also advocate for the Federal Reserve to decrease the debit interchange rate for the first time in over 10 years.

Tax

Competitive tax rates at the local, state and federal level help stimulate investments in our team and operations. Since 2017, our investments have included adding 70,000 new Target team members; increasing our minimum wage to $15 per hour and now to our $15-to-24 starting wage range; tuition-free education assistance; free 24/7 virtual healthcare; adjusting eligibility so more team members can access comprehensive health insurance benefits; as well as offering free backup childcare and paid time off.

We invested billions in building more than 120 new stores and renovating hundreds of existing stores, adding 20 new supply chain facilities to our network, developing supply chain technologies, and improving supply chain capabilities. We plan to invest another $4 billion to $5 billion into our business in 2025 by adding another 20 new stores, remodeling additional stores and continuing our investments in supply chain and technology. These investments further expand our U.S. footprint, as we track to open 300 new stores to reach more American consumers over the next decade.

We advocate for balanced and fair tax rates for corporations and retailers that encourage growth and investment to spur the creation of jobs, community investment and services that benefit consumers.

Target is concerned about increases to the corporate tax rate or other business tax changes that would increase Target’s effective tax rate and create obstacles to business investment.

Organized Retail Crime

Organized Retail Crime (ORC) is the coordinated theft of merchandise by organized criminal syndicates with the intent to resell for financial gain. Organized retail crime has several dimensions, including theft in stores, cargo theft in our supply chain and large-scale gift card fraud. The issue is national in scope, and all retail is partnering with local, state and federal law enforcement to investigate and prosecute organized retail crime.

Target partners with state and local law enforcement to share information and investigative support and provide information to other retailers. . We also partner with State Attorneys General who created ORC Taskforces to maintain and analyze information on criminal enterprises perpetuating crime. Target also collaborates with District Attorneys, police departments, local policymakers and business groups to combat ORC.

While we have seen some incremental improvement over the past few years, Target has joined with other retailers to continue to advocate in support of a federal initiative to investigate and prosecute organized criminal syndicates that knowingly move across state lines. We continue to work with state legislatures across the country to advocate for additional resources dedicated to ORC and for relevant legislation that provides law enforcement and prosecutors tools to apprehend and prosecute bad actors. 

Advocacy reporting

Target publicly reports its federal advocacy activities every three months as required by law with the Secretary of the U.S. Senate and the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives. Copies of our recent federal reports are available here:

We also indirectly engage in advocacy through our memberships in trade associations and other policy-based organizations, which support their member companies by offering educational forums, public policy advocacy and advancement of issues of common concern. Given the diversity of interests, viewpoints and broad membership represented by these organizations, the positions they take do not always reflect Target’s views.

Our financial support of trade associations and other policy-based organizations is limited to educational, lobbying and association management activities. We expressly require that our financial contributions to these organizations not be used for making campaign contributions to candidates or to influence the outcome of specific elections or ballot initiatives. Because these organizations also engage in political efforts, we disclose our memberships as political contributions.

We report the identity of the trade associations and other policy-based organizations that we support, together with the aggregate amount of our financial support. In addition, because membership dues used for lobbying activities are not deductible for U.S. tax purposes, we also show the portion of our total dues that are not tax deductible.

Information on our support of trade associations and other policy-based organizations is updated annually.