The L.L.Bean NOligarchy Profile
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NOligarchy Score
75.8
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L.L.Bean earns a NOligarchy Score of 75.87 out of 100, from Q3 2024 through Q2 2026 (8 quarters — the two-year tracking period). The Wealth Extraction pillar remains the clearest drag. What the score cannot fix is a pay gap that private ownership keeps permanently off the public record.
Current Pillar Scores
Political Access
74.0
Wealth Extraction
58.5
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: 73.99/100. L.L.Bean’s lobbyists appeared on the federal disclosure rolls across two consecutive quarters of 2026, spending $60,000 on trade issues and deploying two former congressional appropriations staffers to press their case across six federal bodies.
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Wealth Extraction Grade: 58.78/100. L.L.Bean’s weakest pillar, driven almost entirely by the estimated pay gap between the company’s chief executive and its frontline workforce — a gap the company is not legally required to disclose. No stock buyback or dividend data is on the public record, as L.L.Bean does not file with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
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Playing by the Rules Grade: 100/100. No regulatory fines, no enforcement actions, and no public subsidy data appear on the record for the period. A clean sheet.
L.L.Bean ranks 11th out of 22 companies in the Sporting goods, hobby, and musical instrument retailers sector. The sector average score is 68.3, placing L.L.Bean above that baseline — a solid above-average standing, though the peer group contains several companies scoring well into the 80s and 90s.
The Bottom Line: A Lobbying Foothold and a Pay Gap That Stays Hidden
L.L.Bean reported $1.8 billion in annual net revenue — and across the first two quarters of 2026, directed a slice of that toward federal lobbying for the first time in the tracked period, pressing trade issues that directly affect its apparel supply chain. Its weakest pillar is not that lobbying foothold but what private ownership conceals: an industry-estimated 182-to-1 pay gap between its chief executive and the workers on the floor, with no legal obligation to confirm or correct that figure. The regulatory record remains spotless — a genuine distinction — but that clean sheet cannot paper over the accountability gaps that private structure quietly creates.
Trading Quiet for a Sustained Presence: $60,000 and Two Hill Veterans
For most of Q3 2024 through Q2 2026, L.L.Bean kept its name off Washington’s lobbying rolls entirely. Then, in the first quarter of 2026, that changed — and the company pressed forward again in Q2. Two consecutive Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA) filings totaling $60,000 record the company’s first federal lobbying presence in the tracking period, directed at trade issues affecting the apparel industry, with filings reaching the Executive Office of the President, the House of Representatives, the Senate, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Commerce, and the Department of the Treasury — six federal bodies in all.
FEDERAL CONTACT LOG
Executive Office of the President (EOP)
2
≈ every 250th business day
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
2
≈ every 250th business day
SENATE
2
≈ every 250th business day
Agriculture, Dept of (USDA)
1
≈ every 500th business day
Commerce, Dept of (DOC)
1
≈ every 500th business day
6 federal bodies named in federal lobbying filings · 2024-Q3–2026-Q2
Between 2024-Q3 and 2026-Q2, L.L.Bean was named in lobbying filings reaching 6 federal bodies — from Executive Office of the President (EOP) to HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
That $60,000 covered one external lobbying firm and three lobbyists. Two of those three came through the revolving door carrying congressional credentials. Kristin Clarkson previously served as Clerk and Staff Director of the House Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies. Stephanie Gadbois held the same role on the House Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies. These are not generalists — they are former budget gatekeepers with institutional knowledge of the exact committees that shape trade and regulatory spending.
The connection to L.L.Bean’s core business is direct: the company designs and sells apparel and outdoor gear, much of it sourced from global supply chains where tariff policy and trade agreements determine input costs. The LDA filing describes the issue simply as “trade issues impacting the apparel industry.” Lobbyists referenced these trade matters across both quarters; LDA filings record that those issues were raised — they do not disclose which outcome L.L.Bean sought.
No Political Action Committee (PAC) contributions appear on the record, and no executive political donations were filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) during the period. The presence of two former appropriations subcommittee staffers signals that even a $60,000 lobbying spend becomes more potent when the people delivering the message used to run the staff operations of the very committees being targeted.
An Undisclosed Pay Gap Behind a Private Door
L.L.Bean’s CEO pay ratio is not publicly disclosed. The best available figure is 182:1, based on AFL-CIO Executive Paywatch industry benchmarks for comparable companies in this sector. Because L.L.Bean is a private company, it faces no legal obligation to publish the actual figure — leaving an industry estimate as the only available signal of how the company divides its earnings between the top and the floor.
No stock buyback or dividend data is on the public record. L.L.Bean does not file with the SEC, so there is no way to determine from publicly available information whether the company is channeling cash to ownership through distributions or other mechanisms — and without a disclosed employee headcount, a precise per-worker comparison cannot be computed. That is the accountability gap that private structure creates at this revenue scale.
A Clean Record on the Public Docket
L.L.Bean’s regulatory record, as tracked by public enforcement databases, shows zero fines and zero violations over the two-year tracking period from Q3 2024 through Q2 2026. No enforcement actions, no wage settlements, no environmental penalties, and no consumer protection judgments appear on the public record.
No government subsidies are recorded either. Many retailers of comparable size have quietly collected tens of millions in local and state economic development grants and tax credits — often simultaneously with labor violations. L.L.Bean shows neither side of that equation during this period.
A score of 100 out of 100 on this pillar is the rarest outcome in the dataset. It does not guarantee a perfect internal record — private companies face less mandatory disclosure, so some infractions may simply never surface in public databases. But on the basis of what is publicly visible, the record is clean.