The Jerry’s Artarama NOligarchy Profile
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Jerry’s Artarama earns a NOligarchy Score of 83.92 out of 100 — a strong showing driven by a near-spotless political footprint and a clean regulatory record, with the score pulled down almost entirely by what a private company is never required to show the public about how it pays its people.
Current Pillar Scores
Political Access
97.3
Wealth Extraction
46.2
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.
The Pillar Grades:
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Political Access Grade: 97.26/100. Jerry’s Artarama filed no federal lobbying reports, operated no Political Action Committee (PAC), and hired no former government officials as lobbyists from Q3 2024 through Q2 2026 (8 quarters — the two-year tracking period). A single $500 individual contribution by an employee keeps the score just short of perfect.
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Wealth Extraction Grade: 46.16/100. This grade reflects the limits of what a private company must disclose. No buyback or dividend data is recorded, and no CEO pay ratio is legally required to be published. The industry benchmark for comparable companies in this sector points to a significant pay gap, and the absence of a public filing means that gap cannot be confirmed, narrowed, or challenged.
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Playing by the Rules Grade: 100/100. No regulatory fines, no violations, and no public subsidies appear in the record over the two-year period.
The Sector Context: Jerry’s Artarama ranks 6th out of 22 companies sharing its federal industry classification (Sporting goods, hobby, and musical instrument retailers), well above the sector average score of 68.6. That places Jerry’s Artarama among the highest-accountability performers in an industry grouping where many larger, publicly traded names score far lower.
The Bottom Line: A Strong Public Record With a Gap Only Disclosure Can Close
Jerry’s Artarama spent nothing on federal lobbying, ran no PAC, and collected no regulatory fines across the two-year tracking period — a genuinely unusual combination among retail businesses at any scale. The one weakness in this profile is structural rather than behavioral: as a private company, Jerry’s Artarama is not legally required to disclose how much its chief executive earns relative to the workers on its sales floor, and it has not chosen to do so voluntarily. An industry benchmark suggests the gap may be substantial, but without a public filing, that figure cannot be confirmed. The accountability question here is not what the company did wrong — it’s what the public is unable to see.
No Footprint in Washington
Jerry’s Artarama has no registered lobbyists, retained no outside lobbying firms, and made no corporate PAC contributions from Q3 2024 through Q2 2026. The Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA) search returns no filings tied to the company across the full two-year period.
The one item on the political ledger is a $500 individual contribution traced to a Jerry’s Artarama employee in Q3 2024, recorded by the Federal Election Commission (FEC). That is the entirety of the political footprint — no revolving-door hires, no shared lobbying firms with larger industry players, no bills cited in any LDA filing.
For an art supply retailer whose customers include working artists, teachers, and students, that restraint is notable. Companies in this sector that do lobby tend to focus on issues like import tariffs on finished goods and raw materials, sales tax nexus rules for online retailers, and consumer product safety regulations — all areas with direct cost implications for a specialty retailer. Jerry’s Artarama chose not to pursue that access.
An Undisclosed Pay Gap
Jerry’s Artarama is a privately held company and is not legally required to publish a CEO pay ratio. The best available figure comes from the AFL-CIO Executive Paywatch industry benchmarks for comparable companies in this sector: 430:1. That means the chief executive of a company like this one likely takes home roughly 430 times what a typical frontline worker earns — a worker stocking shelves, mixing paint, or helping a customer choose brushes. In concrete terms: if that worker earns $35,000 a year, the benchmark implies the person at the top pockets around $15 million. Because the company is not required to file a proxy statement, that figure is not publicly confirmed.
No stock buyback or dividend data is recorded for Jerry’s Artarama. As a private company, it does not trade shares on a public exchange, so the mechanism of deliberately reducing shares outstanding to inflate per-share metrics and trigger executive performance bonuses does not apply in the same form. The absence of a public filing means there is no comparable lens through which to examine how profits are distributed between owners and workers.
A Clean Record on the Public Docket
Jerry’s Artarama accumulated no regulatory fines and no recorded violations over the two-year tracking period — Q3 2024 through Q2 2026. No penalty data appears across federal or state enforcement databases tracked by Good Jobs First. No public subsidies — grants, tax credits, or economic development incentives — appear in the record either.
For a specialty retailer operating in a regulatory environment that covers consumer product safety, employment law, and hazardous materials handling (art supplies regularly include solvents, pigments, and aerosols subject to safety rules), a clean docket is not a trivial outcome. It reflects either rigorous internal compliance or the limited regulatory attention that comes with operating below the scale threshold that typically attracts enforcement scrutiny — or both.