Merrill Lynch and the 2014 FEC election cycle

What this Merrill Lynch × 2014 join shows

LobbyVault stores employer/industry groupings on one axis and election cycles on the other. The 2014 cell for Merrill Lynch is the overlap: every itemized individual contribution in that cycle whose employer field rolled up to the Merrill Lynch grouping. The $1,276,887 cycle total is the headline of that overlap. It is not an official company disbursement, and it does not say which candidates or parties received the money. It also does not include independent expenditures or transfers between committees, which live in other FEC tables.

The same grouping, summed across every cycle in the LobbyVault table, comes to $23,982,707. The 2014 slice is about 5.3% of that running total. A midterm cycle that accounts for roughly a twentieth of an employer’s recorded history is a real cell, but it is not the whole story of the label. Readers who want the unfiltered employer hub or the unfiltered 2014 cycle hub should leave this join and open those pages rather than infer missing years from this one window.

The Merrill Lynch employer grouping

On FEC Form 3 schedules, occupation and employer are self-reported strings. Filers type what they type. LobbyVault’s Merrill Lynch grouping collects those strings that match the firm’s name variants. It is not a Department of Labor industry code, and it is not proof that Merrill Lynch the corporation directed the gifts. Individuals employed by, retired from, or otherwise associated with the name can appear in the same bucket.

Because the grouping is a text match, related wealth-management or Bank of America successor labels may sit in neighboring industry pages. This join does not merge those neighbors. It only reports what the Merrill Lynch key recorded in 2014. If a filer wrote a parent-company name, a wealth-management division, or a misspelling, that row belongs on a different key even if the person worked at the same desk.

Treat the $23,982,707 all-cycle figure as the running sum for this key alone. It is useful as a denominator for the 5.3% share, and it is misleading if used as a valuation of the firm or as proof of a multi-year political program. Neighboring keys have their own denominators and are not subtracted from or added to this one.

How 2014 broke down inside the cell

Three counts sit beside the dollar total. There were 1,056 contributions and 399 donors. That is roughly 2.6 itemized gifts per donor and about $3,200 per donor if the cycle total is divided evenly — an average, not a typical check. Mean contribution size is about $1,209. None of those ratios identify a median, a party split, or a candidate list.

399 donors is a broad cell compared with many employer-cycle joins that collapse to a handful of filers. Breadth still is not the same as a workforce census. Most people associated with the firm in 2014 never appear in itemized FEC records, and people who listed the employer may have given from personal funds long after leaving. Repeat gifts from the same identity raise the contribution count faster than the donor count, which is why 1,056 and 399 should be read as a pair.

What the 2014 cycle table is on its own

The 2014 election cycle is a two-year FEC window covering federal campaigns in that period. Its cycle-wide totals dwarf any single employer cell. Putting Merrill Lynch next to 2014 does not rank the firm inside the cycle, and it does not rank 2014 inside finance. Other employer strings, PACs, and party committees occupy the same cycle with their own numbers.

Use the cycle hub to see the period without the Merrill Lynch filter, and the industry hub to see the employer without the 2014 filter. This page exists only because those two filters were applied at once. The overlay at Merrill Lynch 2014 is the tabular companion; the ties index lists other employer-cycle intersections built the same way.

Limits of the join

Itemized individual contributions are the universe here. Unitemized gifts below the FEC itemization threshold, independent expenditures, and committee-to-committee transfers are outside the cell. Employer text can be misspelled, abbreviated, or left as a best-effort placeholder on other rows that never reach this grouping.

A dollar total in one cycle does not imply a corporate strategy, a lobbying outcome, or a later award from another dataset. Correlation across years is not causation. The records show what was reported, matched, and summed. FEC individual files and USAspending award files are separate universes even when geography or employer names look similar; this join does not mix them.

How to read this page next to the hubs

Start with the $1,276,887, then open the overlay if you need row-level context, then step out to Merrill Lynch or to the 2014 election cycle if you need a dimension dropped. That path keeps the join honest: two filters, one cell, no extra numbers.

If a later cycle restates this employer key, that restatement belongs on its own ties page. Do not carry 2014 averages into another year. The 399 donors, 1,056 contributions, and 5.3% share are properties of this intersection only.

Questions

How much did Merrill Lynch donors give in the 2014 FEC cycle?

FEC.gov aggregates in LobbyVault show $1,276,887 in itemized individual contributions for the Merrill Lynch employer grouping during the 2014 cycle. That sum covers 1,056 contributions from 399 donors. It is not a Merrill Lynch PAC total and not a company treasury figure.

What share of all Merrill Lynch FEC money is the 2014 cycle?

The Merrill Lynch grouping’s all-cycle total in this table is $23,982,707. The 2014 cell of $1,276,887 is about 5.3% of that running total. Other cycles make up the rest; this page does not list them.

Does this mean Merrill Lynch the company donated $1,276,887?

No. The amount is the sum of itemized individual contributions whose employer field matched the Merrill Lynch grouping. FEC employer text is self-reported. The join does not identify corporate treasury gifts or a firm committee.

Where can I see Merrill Lynch or 2014 without the other filter?

Open the Merrill Lynch industry hub for every cycle under that employer string, or the 2014 election cycle hub for the period without the Merrill Lynch filter. The overlay table for this exact join is the Merrill Lynch 2014 cycle page.