The CDW NOligarchy Profile
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CDW earns a NOligarchy Score of 71.2 out of 100 — reflecting a company that has stepped into federal lobbying and continues to pour hundreds of millions of dollars annually into shareholder payouts while its workforce holds steady on median earnings of $117,586.
Current Pillar Scores
Political Access
64.9
Wealth Extraction
57.1
Playing by the Rules
100.0
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: 64.86/100. CDW spent $240,000 on federal lobbying from Q3 2024 through Q2 2026 (8 quarters — the two-year tracking period), tracking issues tied directly to its core business: federal technology procurement, artificial intelligence policy, trade, and energy permitting. No Political Action Committee (PAC) contributions or executive donations appear on the public record.
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Wealth Extraction Grade: 57.18/100. The weakest pillar. CDW has been consistently buying back its own stock and paying dividends, directing hundreds of millions annually toward shareholders while the gap between CEO compensation and a typical worker’s paycheck sits at 128-to-1.
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Playing by the Rules Grade: 100.0/100. A perfect score. No regulatory fines, no documented violations, no public subsidies on record.
CDW ranks 2nd out of 2 companies in the Professional and commercial equipment and supplies merchant wholesalers sector, against a sector average score of 82.6. CDW’s 71.2 trails that average by more than eleven points — placing it at the bottom of its peer group. For higher-scoring companies in this space, see the Better Alternatives section below.
The Bottom Line: A Score That Still Trails Peers, Driven by Sustained Shareholder Payouts
CDW is not a company with a deep lobbying operation or a history of regulatory fines. But across the two-year tracking period, it stepped into the federal influence arena, spending $240,000 to have lobbyists monitor technology procurement rules, artificial intelligence policy, and energy permitting on its behalf. That’s not the dominant story. The dominant story is the money flowing to shareholders: over the most recent two fiscal years alone, CDW channeled more than $1.15 billion into stock buybacks while its 15,000 workers’ median earnings went nowhere near that trajectory. The clean regulatory record earns CDW real credit. The wealth distribution calculus is a different matter entirely.
A Quiet Lobby Emerges at the Federal Door
CDW is a $22.4 billion information technology (IT) products and services company — and federal government contracts are a central pillar of that business. Rules governing how agencies procure hardware and software, how trade tariffs apply to electronics imports, and how the government regulates artificial intelligence directly affect CDW’s largest revenue streams. For years, this company kept a minimal Washington presence. That changed.
According to Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA) filings, CDW spent $240,000 on federal lobbying — $120,000 in 2025 and $120,000 in the first half of 2026 — at a consistent $60,000 per quarter across Q3 2025 through Q2 2026. The filings show a single retained firm, Mehlman Consulting, Inc., which also represents Walmart and GE Appliances — making CDW one of multiple corporate clients sharing the same access network.
Federal Lobbying Spend by Quarter
$240K total
$60K
Q3 '25
$60K
Q4 '25
$60K
Q1 '26
$60K
Q2 '26
Shared Lobbying Exposure
CDW
client
MEHLMAN CONSULTING, INC.
lobbying firm
GE Appliances
also a client
Walmart Inc
also a client
Why it matters: the same firm argues CDW’s case and its rivals’ — one hire buys a web of shared access that can’t be seen from outside. This network worsens CDW’s political-access score (see methodology for the exact factor).
Lobbyists filed under three issue areas — computer industry policy, government procurement, and energy and nuclear matters — across every active quarter. The filings describe monitoring “issues related to value-added services, federal government acquisition of technology, artificial intelligence, and trade policy” and separately “issues related to permitting reform.” The connection to CDW’s business is direct: as a company that resells IT products and managed services to federal agencies, any shift in procurement rules or AI acquisition guidelines could move billions of dollars in contract eligibility.
Lobbyists knocked on the door of the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Executive Office of the President (EOP) — twelve contacts each in the legislative chambers and two with the White House office. For $240,000 against $22.4 billion in annual revenue, this is a modest operation. But the presence itself marks a shift from a zero-spend posture.
No PAC contributions or executive donations appear on the public record, per Federal Election Commission (FEC) data.
Prioritizing Wall Street Over the Workforce
The part of CDW’s story that demands scrutiny isn’t in Washington — it’s in the boardroom decisions about where the money goes. Over the fiscal years captured in the public record, CDW executed a systematic and sustained transfer of corporate cash toward its wealthiest stakeholders.
The Shareholder Payout. CDW spent $653 million on stock buybacks in fiscal 2025 and $500 million in fiscal 2024, per SEC 10-K filings — a two-year buyback total of $1.153 billion. Each of those transactions was a deliberate reduction in shares outstanding that inflates per-share metrics and triggers executive performance bonuses. Layered on top: CDW paid $328.6 million in dividends in fiscal 2025 and $332.1 million in fiscal 2024, per the same SEC 10-K — another $660.7 million over those two years flowing to shareholders. Combined, that’s more than $1.8 billion directed toward capital owners in just two fiscal years. The wealthiest 10% of Americans own 93% of the stock market, meaning the overwhelming majority of those dollars landed in already-wealthy hands.
The Missed Raise. The company made a deliberate choice. The money spent on buying back its own stock could have instead handed every single one of its 15,000 workers a $76,867 raise, spread across the last 2 fiscal years. Spread evenly across those two years, that works out to a $38,433 annual raise the company chose not to give — roughly a third of what the median CDW worker took home in a year.
EARNINGS STATEMENT — ANNUAL
EMPLOYEE: 1 of 15,000
Your share of the buyback
+$76,867
Per biweekly paycheck
+$1,478
SPENT INFLATING THE SHARE PRICE
Stock buybacks over the two most recent fiscal years: $1.15 billion.
Spread across CDW's 15,000 employees, its stock buybacks over the last two fiscal years come to $76,867 per worker — about $1,478 on each of the 52 biweekly paychecks in that span.
Buybacks vs. Workers
What the buyback spend could have meant for 15K employees
Spent on buybacks
$1.2B
directed to shareholders
÷ 15K
workers
Per-worker raise
$76,867
per employee, 2-year total
Spread over those 2 years, that's a 33% annual raise on the median worker's $117,586 salary — money the company chose to send to shareholders instead.
The Dividend Factor. CDW didn’t abandon traditional investor payouts in favor of buybacks — it ran both programs simultaneously and aggressively. More than $660 million in dividends went out the door over the same two fiscal years that saw $1.153 billion in buybacks. This wasn’t a company forced to choose between investors and workers. It funneled cash to shareholders through both mechanisms at scale, leaving the workforce’s earnings untouched.
The Pay Gap. CDW’s CEO pay ratio is 128:1, per SEC DEF 14A disclosure. The CEO’s total compensation in the most recent reported fiscal year was about $15 million. The median CDW worker earned $117,586. Put plainly: the CEO collected the equivalent of 128 full worker salaries in a single year. And the buyback program that channeled $653 million out the door in fiscal 2025 alone directly reduced the supply of shares outstanding — mechanically bumping up Earnings Per Share (EPS) and triggering the performance-linked bonuses embedded in that $15 million package. The workers whose labor generates CDW’s revenue see none of that mechanism work in their favor.
A Clean Record on the Public Docket
CDW’s regulatory record is exactly what it should look like. No fines, no documented violations, no public subsidies accepted — a perfect 100.0 out of 100 on the Playing by the Rules grade. Over the two-year tracking period from Q3 2024 through Q2 2026, CDW accumulated zero penalties and accepted no government grants on the public record. There is nothing here to investigate further.