The Amazon NOligarchy Profile
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NOligarchy Score
14.9
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Amazon’s NOligarchy Score is 14.86 out of 100 — one of the lowest accountability marks in its sector. That score is built from three pillar grades, each measuring a different kind of corporate behavior from Q3 2024 through Q2 2026 (8 quarters — the two-year tracking period).
Current Pillar Scores
Political Access
2.2
Wealth Extraction
39.6
Playing by the Rules
0.0
Score history — 23 quarters
Tier bands show where each quarter's score falls — no numeric y-axis needed. The dashed ring marks the year-over-year comparison point. Tap any quarter but the first to see its pillar breakdown.
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Political Access Grade: 2.18/100. This reflects a company that spends heavily and consistently on federal lobbying and campaign finance, backed by a deep bench of former government staffers now working on its behalf.
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Wealth Extraction Grade: 39.65/100. This reflects a CEO pay gap measured in the thousands-to-one range, even though the company reports no stock buyback or dividend spending in the available data.
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Playing by the Rules Grade: 0.0/100. This reflects $2.54 billion in penalties across 26 cases, the worst violation record in its sector.
The Sector Context: Amazon ranks 19 out of 21 among companies sharing its federal industry classification (Warehouse clubs, supercenters, and other general merchandise retailers). The sector average score is 54.0 — Amazon trails that baseline by a wide margin, sitting near the very bottom of its peer group. For higher-scoring places to shop in this category, see the Better Alternatives section below.
The Bottom Line: A Company That Got Fined $2.5 Billion and Collected $9 Billion in Public Money Anyway
Amazon reported $716.9 billion in global revenue in its most recent fiscal year — SEC EDGAR 10-K, a scale few companies on Earth can match. Over the two-year period, regulators and courts hit the company with $2.54 billion in penalties, and yet governments simultaneously handed Amazon $8.97 billion in public subsidies — more than three times what it paid out in fines. The company channeled $37.77 million into federal lobbying to help shape the very rules its own workplaces were repeatedly found to violate. That combination — the largest penalty bill in its sector paired with the largest public subsidy haul — is the sharpest imbalance in this record.
$40.1 million in political spending
Statue of Liberty · 151 ft
1×
Stacked as $100 bills, Amazon's $40.1 million in political spending rises 144 feet — 1× the height of the Statue of Liberty (the statue alone, 151 ft).
Spending to Buy a Seat at the Table
Amazon’s federal lobbying totaled $37.77 million over the two-year period, Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA) with spending climbing from $9.57 million in 2024 to $18.885 million in 2025 before carrying forward at $9.31 million in 2026. Its Political Action Committee (PAC) added another $1.754 million, split $535,500 to Democrats and $591,000 to Republicans — a near-even hedge that buys access regardless of which party holds power. Federal Election Commission (FEC)
Amazon's PAC gave $535,500 to Democrats and $591,000 to Republicans — a 47.5% / 52.5% split that buys access to whichever party wins.
47.5%
52.5%
Democrats · $535,500
Republicans · $591,000
ACCESS-BUYER PENALTY APPLIED
The issue areas Amazon lobbies hardest on track directly to its business lines. Computer Industry topped the list at 24 filings — unsurprising for a company whose Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud division depends on federal procurement, cybersecurity rules, and data policy. Taxation/Internal Revenue Code followed with 20 filings, touching digital services taxes and international corporate tax treatment that shape Amazon’s global tax bill. Labor Issues/Antitrust/Workplace drew 19 filings, including references to the Warehouse Worker Protection Act — legislation aimed directly at Amazon’s own fulfillment center workforce. Filings also cited the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act of 2025, relevant to a company running one of the world’s largest online marketplaces, and the CREATE AI Act of 2025, relevant to a company building artificial intelligence infrastructure through AWS. None of these filings state which direction Amazon pushed on any bill — only that its lobbyists raised the issue.
Amazon’s political operation runs through 5 outside lobbying firms, and one of them — AVOQ, LLC — also lobbies for Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Verizon, and eBay Inc, giving Amazon’s influence network overlapping reach with other major corporations working the same halls of Congress.
Shared Lobbying Exposure
Amazon
client
AVOQ, LLC
lobbying firm
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
also a client
Verizon
also a client
eBay Inc
also a client
Why it matters: the same firm argues Amazon’s case and its rivals’ — one hire buys a web of shared access that can’t be seen from outside. This network worsens Amazon’s political-access score (see methodology for the exact factor).
The company has deployed at least 21 people who previously held government positions — former committee staff directors, legislative counsels, and policy advisors who now work Capitol Hill and federal agencies on Amazon’s behalf, a roster that includes staff who served on Senate Appropriations, House Ways and Means, and multiple congressional leadership offices.
An Undisclosed Pay Gap, No Buyback Data on Record
Amazon’s CEO pay ratio is 1784:1, the 3-year average of Compensation Actually Paid, according to the company’s own SEC DEF 14A filing. The CEO’s three-year average package was about $72 million — a figure that dwarfs what a typical Amazon warehouse or logistics worker takes home in a year.
No stock buyback or dividend spending is recorded for Amazon in the two-year period covered here; the only buyback entry on file is $0 for fiscal year 2024, SEC 10-K and no dividend total is reported. That means the usual story of a deliberate reduction in shares outstanding that inflates per-share metrics and triggers executive performance bonuses does not apply here on the available record — the gap between the CEO’s roughly $72 million average package and its workforce runs through pay design itself, not through stock-repurchase engineering.
Fines Treated as a Business Expense
Amazon racked up $2.54 billion in penalties across 26 cases over the two-year tracking period — Good Jobs First the largest total fine amount in its entire sector. Consumer protection violations dominate the tally at $2.505 billion across just 5 cases, dwarfing every other category. Wage and hour violations totaled $16.68 million across 4 separate cases, followed by 8 workplace safety or health cases, 4 air pollution cases, and one privacy violation. The pattern is not a single accident but a recurring cost of doing business across multiple parts of the company’s operations. This two-year window is a fraction of the company’s full docket on the source site.
EXHIBIT — WOOLLY MAMMOTH · ~20,000 YEARS AGO
Photo: Thomas Quine, CC BY 2.0
31,444 years of a median household’s income
Worked off at the median household income, Amazon's $2.53 billion in penalties equals 31,444 years — labor reaching back to Ice Age megafauna.
The single largest case was a $2.5 billion consumer protection penalty from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 2025, which alone accounts for nearly the entire two-year fine total. A separate $6.5 million privacy violation tied to PillPack LLC, a $5.5 million wage and hour case, and a $4.4 million wage and hour settlement round out the upper end of the record.
While regulators were fining Amazon and its subsidiaries $2.54 billion, governments were simultaneously handing the company $8.97 billion in public subsidies over 2024–2025, Good Jobs First Subsidy Tracker across 43 separate grants and tax credits. The single largest was an $8.28 billion award to Amazon Data Services in Indiana in 2024, followed by a $260 million grant to Amazon Data Services in Mississippi. The scale of public money flowing to Amazon’s data center buildout over this period far exceeds what regulators clawed back in penalties.