The Five Below NOligarchy Profile
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Five Below earned a NOligarchy Score of 68.55 out of 100 from Q3 2024 through Q2 2026 — the eight-quarter, two-year tracking period. That places it above the sector average but masks a glaring internal contradiction: perfect restraint in Washington paired with a CEO-to-worker pay gap that ranks among the most extreme in retail.
Current Pillar Scores
Political Access
100.0
Wealth Extraction
33.7
Playing by the Rules
90.1
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: 100/100. Five Below filed zero federal lobbying disclosures, ran no corporate Political Action Committee (PAC), and recorded no executive political contributions over the two-year period — a clean sweep across every influence metric tracked.
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Wealth Extraction Grade: 33.29/100. This score reflects the vast distance between what the company’s CEO collected and what its median worker took home, compounded by a buyback program that channeled tens of millions to shareholders while wages stayed flat.
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Playing by the Rules Grade: 49.51/100. A single workplace safety citation from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) sits on the public docket, alongside a small parcel of government subsidies flowing the other direction.
The Sector Context: Five Below ranks 6th out of 21 companies sharing its federal industry classification — Warehouse clubs, supercenters, and other general merchandise retailers. Its score of 68.55 clears the sector average of 54.0 by more than 14 points, making it an accountability outlier among industry peers — in the right direction.
The Bottom Line: A Perfect Political Score Hiding a Devastating Pay Gap
Five Below generated $4.76 billion in annual revenue — roughly the economic output of a small city — yet its median worker took home just $5,982 for the year. That is not a typo: five thousand nine hundred and eighty-two dollars, or less than $500 a month, a figure that suggests most of Five Below’s 30,990-person workforce works part-time hours at entry-level wages. Meanwhile, the company’s top executive collected a three-year average package worth about $12.4 million. The company spent nothing lobbying Congress and nothing on PAC donations — genuine restraint worth acknowledging — but the pay structure it chose tells its own story about where it places the people stocking its shelves.
No Footprint in Washington
Five Below chose not to spend a single dollar on federal lobbying from Q3 2024 through Q2 2026. No outside firms were retained. No lobbyists walked the halls of the Capitol on its behalf. No corporate PAC was funded, and no executive political contributions appeared in Federal Election Commission (FEC) records. The Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA) filing search returns nothing.
For a retailer operating thousands of locations across the country — subject to minimum wage laws, import tariffs, consumer product safety standards, and labor regulations — silence in Washington is a genuine choice, not a default. Five Below opted out of the influence game entirely.
EXHIBIT — THE RESERVED SEAT
$0 in lobbying · $0 in PAC money
Five Below filed no federal lobbying and ran no corporate PAC in this window — the reserved seat at the witness table sits empty.
A $5,982 Median Wage and a $12 Million CEO
The starkest number in Five Below’s public filings is not a fine or a lobbying total. It is the median worker’s annual earnings: $5,982. To put that in human terms — that is less than many Americans spend on groceries in a year. It is what a worker earns taking home roughly $115 a week. It is less than the federal poverty level for a single person. This is the compensation the company set for the typical member of its workforce.
Against that backdrop, the executive suite tells a different story. Five Below’s CEO pay ratio is 2071:1, the 3-year average of Compensation Actually Paid, according to SEC DEF 14A. The CEO’s three-year average package was about $12.4 million — meaning the person at the top collected in a single year what it would take a median Five Below worker roughly two millennia to earn at their current salary.
The Buyback Decision
Five Below did not pay dividends. Instead, it concentrated its shareholder returns into a single mechanism: buying back its own stock. In fiscal year 2024, the company spent $40.2 million repurchasing shares — a deliberate reduction in shares outstanding that inflates per-share metrics and triggers executive performance bonuses. In fiscal year 2025, buybacks fell to zero.
The company made a deliberate choice. The money spent on buying back its own stock could have instead handed every single one of its 30,990 workers a $1,297.61 raise, spread across the last two fiscal years.
Buybacks vs. Workers
What the buyback spend could have meant for 31K employees
Spent on buybacks
$40.2M
directed to shareholders
÷ 31K
workers
Per-worker raise
$1,298
per employee, 2-year total
Spread over those 2 years, that's a 11% annual raise on the median worker's $5,982 salary — money the company chose to send to shareholders instead.
Spread evenly across those two years, that works out to a $648.80 annual raise the company chose not to give.
By abandoning traditional dividends entirely and concentrating all shareholder returns in buybacks, Five Below funneled money through a mechanism that disproportionately rewards insiders and large institutional investors who can time when they sell — not the workers keeping its stores open.
EARNINGS STATEMENT — ANNUAL
EMPLOYEE: 1 of 30,990
Your share of the buyback
+$1,298
Per biweekly paycheck
+$24.95
SPENT INFLATING THE SHARE PRICE
Stock buybacks over the two most recent fiscal years: $40.2 million.
Spread across Five Below's 30,990 employees, its stock buybacks over the last two fiscal years come to $1,298 per worker — about $25 on each of the 52 biweekly paychecks in that span.
One Safety Violation, One Government Check
Five Below’s compliance record over the two-year tracking period from Q3 2024 through Q2 2026 is thin but not spotless. The company accumulated a single regulatory action: a workplace safety violation issued by OSHA in 2025, carrying a penalty of $6,056 — roughly the same as what the company’s median worker earns in an entire year. One case, one agency, one year.
The Subsidy Flip
While OSHA was issuing that citation, governments were simultaneously sending Five Below public money. Two grants — both in New Jersey, one in 2024 and one in 2025 — totaled $14,168 in taxpayer-funded assistance. The company collected more in public subsidies than it paid in regulatory penalties over the same span.
$14,168
taxpayer subsidies
$6,056
regulatory fines
2.3:1
Five Below collected $14,168 in taxpayer subsidies against $6,056 in regulatory fines — 2.3 subsidy dollars for every $1 in penalties.