OWNER as filed on FEC occupation lines

A broad title with a large donor pool

56,888 donor records make OWNER one of the wider occupation keys in this extract. $320,909,004 across that pool averages about $5,640 per donor record. Across 584,805 itemizations the mean is about $549 per contribution. The donor pool is larger than several C-suite strings that post comparable dollars with fewer people.

About 10 contributions per donor record is the repeat rate. That sits near other small-business-style labels and below occupations that itemize dozens of times per person. The ratio does not identify sole proprietors versus multi-entity owners; the FEC box does not encode entity count.

Because OWNER is short, it absorbs many kinds of property and business claims: shop owners, practice owners, and people who wrote owner without naming what they own. The public record is the word, not a NAICS code.

OWNER versus BUSINESS OWNER in the same extract

BUSINESS OWNER is a longer string with its own dollar, contribution, and donor facts. This page does not include those rows. A donor who wrote OWNER on one gift and BUSINESS OWNER on another appears in both totals for the matching lines.

Committees following best efforts record what the donor provided. They are not required to expand OWNER into a business description. Researchers who want a combined “owners” figure must add the separate keys themselves and say so; this overlay cites only $320,909,004, 584,805 contributions, and 56,888 donors.

Itemization volume as a separate story

584,805 line items mean the OWNER total is built from a large stack of transactions, not a handful of headline transfers. Each line is an itemized amount that carried this occupation text in the bulk file LobbyVault loaded.

Unitemized receipts never appear here. Joint fundraising and memo items follow the underlying FEC schedules. This guide does not add refund netting beyond what the indexed amounts already represent. Restated in compact millions, the occupation total is $320.9 million. That compact figure is the same headline amount as the full dollar total on this page, rounded to one decimal place in millions.

Industry pages are not a substitute

Industry views group employer categories. An owner in construction and an owner in retail can share OWNER as occupation and split across industries. Filter one dimension at a time. The occupations index shows OWNER next to related titles without merging them.

Open the OWNER occupation page to read donor and recipient rows. Cite FEC.gov as the source. Do not treat the label as proof of a small-business voting bloc or a party preference. Restated in compact millions, the occupation total is $320.9 million. That compact figure is the same headline amount as the full dollar total on this page, rounded to one decimal place in millions.

Field definition

Occupation is self-reported on Form 3 and Form 3X itemizations. Employer is a separate field and is not one of the three packet facts. $320,909,004 is the sum of amounts on lines where occupation matched OWNER in the LobbyVault index.

Researchers comparing occupation keys should keep OWNER on its own line with its own dollar, contribution, and donor facts. The occupations index is the inventory of neighboring strings. Industry pages remain an employer-side cut and should not be added to this occupation total. Unitemized receipts never carry an occupation code, so $320.9 million is itemized activity for this string in the loaded extract. Restated in compact millions, the occupation total is $320.9 million. That compact figure is the same headline amount as the full dollar total on this page, rounded to one decimal place in millions.

OWNER as a short word that absorbs many businesses

OWNER is $320.9 million on 584,805 itemizations from 56,888 donor records. The donor pool is wide because the word is short. Shop owners, practice owners, and property owners can share it. BUSINESS OWNER is a longer phrase with its own $82,755,159 and is excluded here. SELF-EMPLOYED is another status label, also excluded. Mean amounts on OWNER are about $549 per itemization and about $5,640 per donor record.

A methods check: if a story says “business owners gave X,” and X is only this page, the story undercounts people who wrote BUSINESS OWNER and overcounts people who own something other than a firm. Stick to the filed string. The OWNER occupation page is the row-level view. Industry pages will not reproduce $320,909,004 because they slice employer categories, not occupation text.

Questions

How much have OWNER-occupation donors given?

Itemizations listing OWNER sum to $320,909,004 in LobbyVault’s FEC bulk index, from 584,805 contributions and 56,888 donor records. The total is the occupation-string sum, not a census of business owners. Occupation is self-reported free text on FEC Form 3 and Form 3X schedules. Unitemized receipts never enter this occupation total. The live hub may apply cycle filters; this packet is the harvested occupation key.

Is OWNER combined with BUSINESS OWNER?

No. BUSINESS OWNER is a separate occupation key. This page’s $320,909,004 excludes gifts whose occupation text was BUSINESS OWNER unless that text normalized to OWNER. The matching contribution count is 584,805 and the matching donor-record count is 56,888. Those three numbers are occupation-string totals from FEC Form 3/3X itemizations indexed on LobbyVault, not a licensed roster and not a party split.

How many OWNER donors are in the file?

56,888 donor records are attached to OWNER itemizations. That count is FEC contributor records, not a de-duplicated list of unique humans or a registry of firms. The matching contribution count is 584,805 and the matching donor-record count is 56,888. Those three numbers are occupation-string totals from FEC Form 3/3X itemizations indexed on LobbyVault, not a licensed roster and not a party split.

Does OWNER tell me what kind of business the donor runs?

No. Occupation is free text. The word OWNER does not encode industry, revenue, or legal form. Employer and industry tables, when used, are separate filters on other fields. The matching contribution count is 584,805 and the matching donor-record count is 56,888. Those three numbers are occupation-string totals from FEC Form 3/3X itemizations indexed on LobbyVault, not a licensed roster and not a party split.