The Hy-Vee Inc NOligarchy Profile
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NOligarchy Score: 68.55/100
This score covers from Q3 2024 through Q2 2026 (8 quarters — the two-year tracking period). Hy-Vee Inc is an employee-owned grocery chain with no public stock and no Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, which shapes what can and cannot be checked here.
Current Pillar Scores
Political Access
85.5
Wealth Extraction
50.2
Playing by the Rules
55.5
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: 85.48/100. Hy-Vee reported zero federal lobbying spend, but its corporate Political Action Committee (PAC) channeled $156,000 to federal candidates and committees, and company executives personally contributed an additional $42,312 — a political footprint that, while modest by corporate standards, is real and documented.
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Wealth Extraction Grade: 50.18/100. There is no buyback or dividend data to evaluate, and Hy-Vee’s CEO pay ratio is not disclosed — the score relies on an industry benchmark estimate, explained below.
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Playing by the Rules Grade: 52.59/100. Nine regulatory violations and $104,944 in fines appear in the public record, almost entirely from workplace safety citations.
The Sector Context: Hy-Vee ranks 3 out of 8 among companies sharing its federal industry classification (Grocery Stores), sitting above the sector average score of 54.8. Its workplace-safety fine record is the dominant drag on an otherwise limited political and shareholder-return footprint.
The Bottom Line: Fined for Worker Safety, Rewarded With Public Money
Hy-Vee generated an estimated $12 billion in annual revenue, yet racked up $104,944 in fines from federal regulators — almost entirely for putting its own workers at risk — while simultaneously collecting $354,718 in public subsidies during the same years. That means governments handed Hy-Vee more than three dollars in public support for every dollar it paid in penalties for safety violations. The company’s private, employee-owned structure continues to shield executive pay and internal finances from any public disclosure, leaving the worker-compensation picture built on estimates rather than the company’s own numbers.
A Political Footprint Built on PAC Dollars
Hy-Vee’s Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA) record is empty — the company spent $0 on federal lobbying, retained no external lobbying firms, and filed no issue-area disclosures. No revolving-door hires, no shared lobbying shops, and no outside counsel on the books.
The campaign-finance picture is a different story. Hy-Vee’s corporate PAC deployed $156,000 in federal contributions across the period, per Federal Election Commission (FEC) records. Of that total, 61.3% flowed to Republican candidates or committees and 38.7% to Democrats. The lopsided but not one-sided split suggests the PAC functions less as an ideological instrument than as a relationship-maintenance tool, keeping Hy-Vee connected to whichever party ends up writing rules on food retail, pharmacy licensing, or workforce regulation for a $12 billion grocery operation.
Hy-Vee Inc's PAC gave $55,000 to Democrats and $87,000 to Republicans — a 38.7% / 61.3% split that buys access to whichever party wins.
38.7%
61.3%
Democrats · $55,000
Republicans · $87,000
ACCESS-BUYER PENALTY APPLIED
Company executives personally contributed $42,312 to federal candidates and committees as individuals — these are donations by people listing Hy-Vee as their employer, not corporate dollars, but they reflect where the politically engaged leadership’s attention is directed. Giving accelerated sharply in the second quarter of 2026, with just over $15,000 in personal contributions recorded in that quarter alone.
An Undisclosed Pay Gap
Hy-Vee’s CEO-to-worker pay ratio is not publicly disclosed. The best available figure is 280:1, based on AFL-CIO Executive Paywatch industry benchmarks for comparable companies in this sector, per AFL-CIO Executive Paywatch. As a private company, Hy-Vee is not required to publish its actual ratio. That benchmark estimate means the person running Hy-Vee likely took home roughly 280 times what a typical front-line grocery worker earned — a gap that cannot be confirmed or contested because no filing requires Hy-Vee to disclose the real number.
No stock buyback or dividend data is recorded for Hy-Vee. As a private, employee-owned company, it has no shareholder-return filings on record, so there is no missed-raise calculation to run and no dividend contrast to draw.
Fines Treated as a Business Expense
Over the two-year tracking period from Q3 2024 through Q2 2026, Hy-Vee accumulated 9 regulatory violations totaling $104,944 in penalties, according to Good Jobs First records covering 2024–2025. Eight of those cases — accounting for $98,554, or roughly 94% of all fines — fell under workplace safety and health violations cited by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). This is not an isolated accident; it is a recurring pattern of conditions that federal regulators found unsafe for Hy-Vee’s own employees, across multiple locations, in back-to-back years.
This is the median American household.
Two earners, a kid, a dog, $80,610 a year — the exact middle of the country (U.S. Census).
NOTICE OF PENALTY — HOUSEHOLD SCALE
ISSUED TO
the median U.S. household
BASIS
0.0009% of annual income
$0.7
the same share of income that $104,944 in penalties takes of the company’s revenue
Hy-Vee Inc's $104,944 in regulatory penalties is 0.0009% of its revenue — for a median household, the same bite as a $0.7 ticket.
The single largest penalty was $23,170, levied by OSHA in 2025 for a workplace safety violation. The nine cases span 2024 and 2025, with OSHA as the dominant enforcement agency. A separate $6,390 penalty came from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) in 2025 for a motor vehicle safety violation — the only case outside the workplace-safety category.
The Subsidy Flip: While OSHA was citing Hy-Vee for unsafe working conditions, governments were simultaneously writing Hy-Vee checks. Public subsidy records show Hy-Vee collected $354,718 in grants in 2024 — the same year federal safety violations were being recorded. The two largest awards were $235,000 and $119,718. A company that pocketed more than three times as much in public support as it paid in safety penalties for harming workers is a company whose accountability math runs in only one direction.
The Data Evidence
No SEC 10-K or DEF 14A filings exist for Hy-Vee — it is a privately held, employee-owned company and is not required to make these disclosures.