The Meijer NOligarchy Profile
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NOligarchy Score
60.3
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meijer.com
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Meijer, a privately held Midwest grocery and retail chain with $21.95 billion in annual revenue, earns a NOligarchy Score of 60.3 out of 100 — a composite measure of how much of its power it channels into political influence, enriching insiders, and sidestepping regulatory accountability. On this scale, 100 means a perfect record: no political spending, no outsized executive pay, no regulatory fines. At 60.3, Meijer sits modestly above its sector midpoint — but that positioning conceals a yawning gap in what the company chooses to disclose about its internal finances.
Current Pillar Scores
Political Access
58.4
Wealth Extraction
37.2
Playing by the Rules
95.0
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: 58.39/100. This score reflects $240,000 in federal lobbying fees channeled into Washington from Q3 2024 through Q2 2026 (8 quarters — the two-year tracking period), plus $55,300 in personal political donations from Meijer executives — all while the company operates without a corporate Political Action Committee (PAC).
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Wealth Extraction Grade: 37.21/100. This grade captures the estimated chasm between what the person at the top earns and what the people stocking shelves and running registers take home — a gap that cannot be independently verified because Meijer, as a private company, is not required to publish it.
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Playing by the Rules Grade: 95.0/100. A single workplace safety citation from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), totaling $6,300, is the only violation recorded in the two-year tracking period — a limited footprint compared with sector peers who rack up millions in fines.
The Sector Context: Meijer ranks 11th out of 21 among companies sharing its federal industry classification — Warehouse clubs, supercenters, and other general merchandise retailers. Its score of 60.3 sits above the sector average of 54.0, meaning Meijer outperforms roughly half its classified peers on the metrics tracked here.
A $21.95 Billion Machine — Hidden in Plain Sight
Meijer generates nearly $22 billion a year in sales — more than the entire annual budget of several US states — yet operates behind the thickest curtain in American retail: private ownership. That structure means customers, workers, and policymakers have almost no visibility into how executive compensation is set, where profits flow, or whether shareholder payouts are happening at all. Over the two-year tracking period, Meijer channeled $240,000 into federal lobbying and its executives personally donated $55,300 to political candidates, even as OSHA cited the company for putting workers at risk. The starkest imbalance in this picture is not a dollar figure — it is the silence where disclosure should be.
Spending to Buy a Seat at the Table on Drug Pricing
Over the two-year tracking period, Meijer spent $240,000 in federal lobbying fees, all routed through a single outside firm: Venture Government Strategies, LLC (formerly known as Hobart Hallaway & Quayle Ventures, LLC) — a firm that also lobbies for fast-fashion retailer Shein. Every dollar of that lobbying was filed under the “Small Business” issue category, but the actual substance is more targeted. Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA) filings across multiple quarters describe the work as covering “general issues impacting the retail industry, including issues related to pharmacy services, drug pricing, and PBM reform.”
Shared Lobbying Exposure
Meijer
client
VENTURE GOVERNMENT STRATEGIES, LLC (FKA HOBART HALLAWAY & QUAYLE VENTURES, LLC)
lobbying firm
Shein
also a client
Why it matters: the same firm argues Meijer’s case and its rivals’ — one hire buys a web of shared access that can’t be seen from outside. This network worsens Meijer’s political-access score (see methodology for the exact factor).
Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) are the powerful middlemen who negotiate between drug manufacturers and insurance plans to determine what medications cost at the pharmacy counter. For Meijer — which operates in-store pharmacies across its Midwest locations — how PBMs set reimbursement rates and how drug pricing rules are written has a direct effect on pharmacy margins. Meijer’s lobbyists knocked on the doors of both the House of Representatives and the Senate in every quarter in which lobbying was recorded, signaling a sustained effort to shape how Congress writes these rules.
FEDERAL CONTACT LOG
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
6
≈ every 83rd business day
SENATE
6
≈ every 83rd business day
2 federal bodies named in federal lobbying filings · 2024-Q3–2026-Q2
Between 2024-Q3 and 2026-Q2, Meijer was named in lobbying filings reaching 2 federal bodies — from HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES to SENATE.
Meijer also hired an insider to carry that message. One of the three lobbyists working this account is Hannah So, a former Legislative Director and Senior Legislative Assistant to Representative Laurel Lee, who also previously served Representative Chris Smith and held staff positions for Representatives Chris Jacobs and Fred Keller. One former congressional staffer can open doors that a cold filing cannot.
Beyond the lobbying contract, Meijer executives personally donated $55,300 to federal candidates and committees over the two-year period, with the bulk — $51,300 — concentrated in the fourth quarter of 2024. The company itself maintains no PAC, so these are individual contributions from people who list Meijer Inc as their employer.
An Undisclosed Pay Gap Behind Private Walls
Because Meijer is a privately held company, it is not required by law to publish what its chief executive earns relative to a typical worker — and it does not. The best available figure is 592:1, based on AFL-CIO Executive Paywatch industry benchmarks for comparable companies in this sector. That means for every dollar a median Meijer worker earns, the person at the top is estimated to make 592 times as much. No independently verified CEO compensation figure is publicly disclosed, so no dollar amount can be responsibly attached to that ratio.
No stock buyback or dividend data is recorded for Meijer — a consequence of private ownership, not necessarily proof that no such payouts exist. That opacity is itself the story: a company doing $21.95 billion in annual business can distribute profits however it chooses, to whoever it chooses, with no obligation to tell the public, its workforce, or policymakers how that money moved.
One Citation, One Worker Safety Failure
Over the two-year tracking period, OSHA cited Meijer once for a workplace safety or health violation in 2024, resulting in a $6,300 penalty.
To calibrate what $6,300 means at this scale: it represents a vanishingly small fraction of a single hour of Meijer’s annual sales receipts. At that level, an OSHA fine functions as little more than a nuisance cost for a company generating $21.95 billion a year. The Good Jobs First source linked here covers Meijer’s full historical docket; this two-year window is only a slice of that broader record.
No public subsidies from state or local governments were recorded for Meijer during the two-year tracking period.