The biggest critique of Hillary Clinton I have heard is that she is owned by corporations, which has been passed around as “fact.” Well I’d like to counter with some facts of my own.

First and foremost,

CORPORATIONS CANNOT DIRECTLY CONTRIBUTE TO A CAMPAIGN. Period. When you see something saying Goldman Sachs has donated $800,000 to her campaign or fossil fuels have donated $300,000, that represents donations from individual employees. Anyone donating to the campaign has to specify their employer; their money is then counted as a donation from said employer no matter what rank or position they hold in the company. To use the example of Goldman Sachs, this means that a cleaning person, an entry level data analyst, or an investor employed by Goldman Sachs are all reported under the umbrella of “Goldman Sachs donations.” These individuals are donating under a contribution limit just as any other citizen would. Why should their contributions be demonized because of where they work?

But what about corporations donating to Super PACs?

To put everything in perspective, Clinton has raised a total of $222.6 million, $145.4 mil (or 65%) of which comes from individual donations limited to $2700. It should be noted that candidates cannot coordinate with Super PACs. In terms of money that the campaign can use (raised from individuals and PACs only), these individual donors make up 91% of her campaign funding.

Outside groups (aka Super PACs and hybrid PACs) account for $62.7 mil.

Her largest Super PAC, Priorities USA Action, has raised $55.6 mil. For the interest of clarity, and considering the fact that it accounts for about 89% of all Super PAC funds, I will focus my analysis solely on this group.

Within Priorities USA Action, corporations have donated $12.9 mil. What does this mean?

Corporate donations from her largest Super PAC only amount to 5.8% of Clinton’s total fundraising

Clinton is 2.2 times more powered by individual contributions under $200 than corporate donations from her largest Super PAC

Clinton is 11.2 times more powered by all individual contributions donated directly to her campaign than corporate donations from her largest Super PAC.

Who is her largest corporate donor?

The Laborer’s International Union of North America (LIUNA Building America) at $4 million. Yes, you heard that right, a union. A laborer’s union is the largest corporate donor across all pro-Clinton Super PACs.

First off, its contribution amounts to only 2.8% of Clinton’s total fundraising. Secondly, using the oft invoked argument that more money means more influence, if Clinton is somehow beholden to an organization that fights for “better wages and benefits” for American workers then we are in a pretty good place.

In fact, $10.5 mil of the $12.9 mil of corporate donations to Priorities USA Action are from worker’s unions. Let me phrase this in another way: 82% of all of the money donated by corporations to Clinton’s largest Super PAC comes from unions.

These unions are (in order of donation amount):

LIUNA Building America ($4 mil)

Operating Engineers Union ($2 mil)

Plumbers/Pipefitters Union ($2 mil)

Working for Working Americans ($1.5 mil)

American Federation of Teachers ($1 mil)

How are contributions from organizations representing teachers, plumbers, laborers, and engineers preventing Clinton from regulating the financial industry or bringing down the price of prescription drugs?

Where are these banks that are supposedly funneling money into Clinton’s Super PACs? Priorities USA Action has one corporate bank donor, Amalgamated Bank, whose site describes it as New York’s first labor bank, and who has donated a whopping $50,000, or 0.03% of Clinton’s total funding. Not even a tenth of a percent. Not even half of a tenth of a percent.

That is not to say that individuals associated with finance or real estate are not donating to her. They are. $20.7 mil individual donations to Priorities USA Action, which are unlimited unlike individual donations going directly to her campaign, are from people in finance, insurance, or real estate.

What is important to realize, however, is that while significant donations from corporations can be dangerous in the sense that monetary influence is concentrated in one entity, at the hands of many individuals that monetary power is diluted. These individuals represent different companies, different professions, different roles, and different ideals or interests. Considering Hillary Clinton was a popular senator from New York, where a number of these industries are based, it is not absurd to think that they would support her due to their familiarity with her work as a legislator. Perhaps they support her due to her emphasis on K-12 public education, her emphasis on heroin addiction treatment, her emphasis on expanding support programs for those with autism, or her emphasis on Alzheimer’s research. We cannot know for sure. What we can know, however, is that they are not financial corporations wielding power. Moreover, these individuals account for less than 10% of all money raised for pro-Clinton efforts.

My point wasn’t to talk about individuals, however. My point was to cast doubt on this argument that corporations are fueling Clinton’s campaign. Where are these donations from Big Banks, from Big Pharma, from Big Oil?

To Summarize,

Corporations donating to Priorities USA Action, Hillary Clinton’s largest Super PAC and source of 89% of all money raised by outside groups, account for only 5.8% of all money raised either for the campaign or for outside groups. 82% of these “corporate” donations come from unions. In other words, 82% of that 5.8%. Non-union corporate donations account for 1%.

If there has been one prevailing narrative this election, it is that Clinton is tainted by corporate money. Sadly, these narratives tend to spread without any reflection on their merits. Ultimately, if someone is going to assert that Clinton’s presidential campaign is disproportionately funded by corporations, the burden of proof is on the accuser. Looking at these numbers, I don’t see a convincing case.