logo

Did the pandemic have an effect on corporate lobbying in 2020?

Tuesday, January 19, 2021
By Austin Tannenbaum
YES

The pandemic spurred a high volume of lobbying in the spring of 2020 as corporations sought to influence the government’s response and secure a portion of the $500 billion in funds set aside for large corporations in the coronavirus relief package enacted in March.

Lobbying tapered off as the year went on. Compared to 2019, 2020 lobbying spending decreased by nearly $1 billion dollars and nearly 600 fewer organizations lobbied in 2020. There is no evidence that private companies lobbied the U.S. government to broaden or extend closures or stay-home orders, given the clear costs of the measures to many kinds of businesses.

Following the approval of COVID-19 vaccines in late 2020, companies renewed their pandemic lobbying efforts to get workers an early spot in line for a vaccine.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR
Between 2020 and 2022, under close editorial supervision, Gigafact contracted a group of freelance writers and editors to test the concepts for fact briefs and provide inputs to our software development process. We call this effort Gigafact Foundry. Over the course of these two years, Gigafact Foundry writers published over 1500 fact briefs in response to claims they found online. Their important work forms the basis of Gigafact formats and editorial guidelines, and is available to the public on Gigafact.org. Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of relevant information to be found, not all fact briefs produced by Gigafact Foundry reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date and need to be looked at with fresh eyes, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.
FACT BRIEF BY
facebook
twitter
email
email