The Federal Election Commission, the Senate Office of Public Records, the SEC, and other federal regulators publish detailed data on how corporations spend money to shape policy, how they pay executives versus workers, and how well they comply with the law. This data is public — but it has never been stitched together in a way that consumers can use at the point of purchase.

N🚫ligarchy bridges that gap. We map every major retailer to its parent company and score it across three pillars: how much it spends to shape government policy, how much it extracts for shareholders and executives rather than workers, and how well it plays by the rules regulators set for everyone. The result is a shopping guide that reflects not just price and quality, but the full footprint of the corporation receiving your money.

We are not anti-business. We are pro-democracy and pro-accountability. There is a meaningful difference between a company that lobbies on regulations affecting its core operations and one that funds efforts to concentrate wealth and power, squeezes workers to enrich executives and shareholders, or racks up violations instead of following the rules. The N🚫ligarchy Score is designed to distinguish between them.

Federal Election Commission (FEC): We use the FEC's bulk data files and API to retrieve PAC contributions linked to parent companies of major retailers. Data is refreshed on each FEC reporting cycle.

Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA) Database: We query the Senate Office of Public Records' LDA API for quarterly LD-2 filings, which disclose lobbying expenditures and the policy areas targeted.

SEC EDGAR: CEO-to-worker pay ratios come from DEF 14A proxy statements (Dodd-Frank §953(b) disclosure). Revenue figures for market share computation come from annual 10-K filings. Both are mandatory disclosures for large public companies.

Good Jobs First Violation Tracker: Total regulatory fine data covering federal and state penalties — environmental, labor, consumer protection, and financial violations — sourced from Good Jobs First's Violation Tracker website.

Good Jobs First Subsidy Tracker: Government subsidies received by companies — tax breaks, grants, and loan guarantees — sourced from Good Jobs First's Subsidy Tracker website.

US Census Annual Retail Trade Survey (ARTS): We use ARTS category totals as the market denominator for computing each company's share within its 3-digit NAICS retail category.

Corporate Mapping: We maintain a manually curated mapping of retail brands to their controlling owners — whether that's another retailer, a private equity firm, or a diversified holding company. Where we've confirmed genuine controlling ownership (not a passive minority stake), the parent's lobbying, PAC and executive-donation, CEO pay ratio, and buyback figures count toward the subsidiary's score, since that's where the underlying money — and its political spending — actually flows. Regulatory violations, subsidies, and market share are always scored at the operating company's own level. See the Methodology page for the full ownership rule.