The Nordstrom NOligarchy Profile
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Nordstrom earns a NOligarchy Score of 88.02 out of 100 — first in its sector and well above the Department Stores sector average of 73.4. That headline number reflects genuine restraint: no lobbying machine, no Political Action Committee (PAC), and zero share buybacks in the most recent fiscal year. But beneath the composite score, the Wealth Extraction pillar has slipped, driven by $124 million in dividends flowing to shareholders while the median Nordstrom employee — the person working the fitting room or processing your return — took home $35,636 for the year.
Current Pillar Scores
Political Access
94.5
Wealth Extraction
76.9
Playing by the Rules
73.2
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: 94.55/100. Nordstrom spent nothing on federal lobbying and ran no corporate PAC from Q3 2024 through Q2 2026 (8 quarters — the two-year tracking period). A small amount of individual executive contributions was disclosed to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), but there is no institutional influence apparatus here.
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Wealth Extraction Grade: 76.67/100. Nordstrom’s CEO-to-median-worker pay gap of 127:1 and its $124 million dividend payout give this pillar its weight. Buybacks were zero in fiscal year 2024, but the dividend stream channeled real money away from the workforce and toward shareholders.
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Playing by the Rules Grade: 73.2/100. Three regulatory infractions over the two-year tracking period produced $46,269 in fines — a modest total that now ranks Nordstrom first (best) on compliance among all seven tracked Department Stores companies, reflecting a sector in which peers have accumulated substantially heavier penalty records.
Nordstrom ranks 1st out of 7 among companies sharing its federal industry classification — Department Stores — with a score of 88.02 against a sector average of 73.4. It outperforms every tracked peer by a meaningful margin. The Wealth Extraction score of 76.67 is the relative drag: the pay gap and dividend payout keep this pillar from matching the clean political and compliance pictures.
The Bottom Line: $124 Million for Shareholders, $35,636 for the People Who Run the Stores
Nordstrom generated $15 billion in annual revenue in its last reported fiscal year — a figure that predates its take-private transaction completed in May 2025, after which the company stopped reporting to public markets. It chose not to build a lobbying apparatus or fund a PAC, and it kept its regulatory fine total among the lowest in its sector. But it also chose to send $124 million to shareholders through dividends in fiscal year 2024 while paying its 54,000 workers a median salary that amounts to less than what its CEO pockets before the first week of January is out.
No Footprint in Washington
Nordstrom filed no federal lobbying disclosures under the Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA) and operated no corporate PAC during the two-year tracking period. The Senate LDA database returns no filings for the company. No external lobbying firms were retained. No former government insiders were brought on to exploit political connections.
What the FEC does show is $12,590 in individual contributions from people who listed Nordstrom as their employer — spread across Q3 2024, Q4 2024, and Q1 2026. These are personal donations by individual executives, not corporate dollars, and they represent the full extent of the company’s visible presence in electoral politics. For a company that generated $15 billion in annual revenue, this is political silence.
Dividend Checks for Shareholders, $35,636 for the Workers Who Serve Them
The pay gap at Nordstrom is concrete: the CEO pay ratio is 127:1, per the SEC DEF 14A. The CEO’s total compensation in the most recent reported fiscal year was about $4.5 million. The median Nordstrom employee — stocking shelves, working fitting rooms, processing returns — took home $35,636.
CEO — MEDIAN-PAY MARKER
JANUARY
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passes the median employee’s full annual pay
9:23 AM · January 3
127× the median employee’s pay
At 127:1, Nordstrom's CEO earns the median employee's entire annual pay by 9:23 AM on January 3.
Nordstrom’s shareholder return strategy in fiscal year 2024 was built entirely on dividends: it paid no buybacks, but it paid out $124 million in regular dividends — money that flows to the wealthiest 10% of Americans, who own 93% of the stock market. Because no shares were repurchased — a deliberate reduction in shares outstanding that inflates per-share metrics and triggers executive performance bonuses — that particular earnings-inflation mechanism was absent from the 2024 record. The 127:1 pay ratio reflects the executive salary package standing on its own.
The dividend reality sharpens the workforce contrast. Nordstrom handed $124 million to shareholders in a single year while 54,000 workers earned a median salary of $35,636. No buyback data exists for a second fiscal year in the tracking record, so a per-worker raise calculation cannot be derived. What is visible is the choice itself: $124 million toward investor returns, and earnings for the people running the stores left where they were.
The Lowest Fine Total in the Sector — and Three Violations That Still Shouldn’t Have Happened
Three enforcement actions. Two regulatory agencies. $46,269 in total fines. That is Nordstrom’s compliance record over the two-year tracking period, and it ranks the company first — best — among all seven tracked Department Stores companies. Relative to its peers, this is a clean ledger.
The dominant offense category is hazardous waste. New Jersey’s environmental enforcement agency cited Nordstrom twice: a $9,000 penalty in 2024 and a $25,500 penalty in 2025 — together accounting for $34,500 of the total. The 2025 New Jersey case is the single largest on the record.
The third case is a 2025 workplace safety and health violation cited by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which produced an $11,769 fine. A federal citation means workers at a Nordstrom facility were exposed to conditions the government deemed unsafe.
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
0.0003% of annual income
$0.25
the same share of income that $46,269 in penalties takes of the company’s revenue
Nordstrom's $46,269 in regulatory penalties is 0.0003% of its revenue — for a median household, the same bite as a $0.25 ticket.
For a company generating $15 billion in annual revenue, $46,269 in regulatory penalties is a fraction of a rounding error. The source site carries Nordstrom’s full historical docket beyond this two-year window — this period captures only a slice of the public record.