The Michaels NOligarchy Profile
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NOligarchy Score
30.3
/ 100
michaels.com
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Ranked in
Crafts & Hobby Supplies
#5
Subsidiary of Apollo Global Management, Inc.
Michaels earns a NOligarchy Score of 30.22 out of 100 — where higher means cleaner. The score places Michaels near the bottom of its sector, driven by a wealth extraction grade that now reflects both an estimated executive pay gap and tax avoidance data drawn from the company’s last public financial filing before it was taken private. A private ownership structure continues to wall off most current disclosures, but what is on the public record tells a pointed story.
Current Pillar Scores
Political Access and Wealth Extraction include disclosures reported at the Apollo Global Management, Inc. (parent company) level. Playing by the Rules reflects this company directly.
Political Access
33.7
Wealth Extraction
10.7
Playing by the Rules
57.1
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: 33.71/100. From Q3 2024 through Q2 2026 — the two-year tracking period — Michaels’ parent entity spent $4,570,000 on federal lobbying and executives listed as Michaels employees personally channeled more than $2.1 million into federal campaigns. That combined political outlay pulls this grade down sharply.
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Wealth Extraction Grade: 10.37/100. Michaels is privately held and files no current public disclosures with the SEC. No stock buyback or dividend data is recorded. What is available — from the company’s last public 10-K before its 2021 take-private — shows an effective tax rate of 18.2% against the 21% federal statutory rate, and a benchmark CEO pay ratio estimated at 454:1.
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Playing by the Rules Grade: 57.09/100. Two OSHA citations at two separate locations totaling $41,785 in penalties over the two-year period. The dollar amount is modest on a sector scale, but two citations at two different sites in consecutive years is a pattern, not a fluke.
Michaels ranks 21st out of 22 companies among companies sharing its federal industry classification, Sporting goods, hobby, and musical instrument retailers. The sector average score is 68.3 — Michaels trails that baseline by more than 38 points, placing it second-to-last in its peer group. For higher-scoring places to shop, see the Better Alternatives section below.
The Bottom Line: A Near-Bottom Score Built on Political Spending and a Tax Discount
The sharpest imbalance in Michaels’ public record is the distance between what flows upward — to Washington influence operations and a reduced federal tax bill — and what is visible flowing to the workers running its stores. Executives who list Michaels as their employer poured more than $6.8 million in combined lobbying and personal federal contributions into Washington over the two-year tracking period. Meanwhile, the company’s last audited tax filing shows an effective federal rate of 18.2% — 2.8 percentage points below what Congress set as the statutory rate. The remainder of the financial picture — current executive salaries, shareholder distributions, and the full structure of how profits move under private ownership — remains out of public view.
Michaels's $6.8 million in political spending equals 84 years of median-household income — enough people, one per year worked, to fill 0.5 fully-boarded 737s.
Spending to Shape the Tariff Debate
Michaels operates one of the largest craft and hobby retail chains in the country, and a meaningful share of what lines its shelves arrives from overseas manufacturers. When the federal government debates import tariffs, the cost calculus at Michaels moves with it — which makes the company’s emergence as a federal lobbying presence straightforward to follow.
During the two-year period, Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA) filings show $4,570,000 in total federal lobbying expenditures filed under Michaels’ parent entity, Apollo Global Management. The company retained one outside lobbying firm and filed disclosures reaching both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The spending was front-loaded: $2,640,000 in 2024, falling to $1,280,000 in 2025, and $650,000 through the first half of 2026. Every filing in the record lists the same two issue areas — tariff policy (including miscellaneous tariff bills) and domestic and foreign trade policy — and every sample description reduces to a single phrase: policies and proposals related to tariff and trade issues. Lobbyists referenced these issue areas without the LDA disclosures specifying any position taken on particular legislative outcomes.
Alongside the corporate lobbying, Federal Election Commission (FEC) records show $2,195,853 in federal campaign contributions from individuals who listed Michaels as their employer over the same stretch. These are personal donations from individual employees, not a company Political Action Committee (PAC) — Michaels operates no PAC, and no PAC spending is recorded. The company also ran no revolving-door operation: zero former government officials were brought in-house to work federal relationships.
FEDERAL CONTACT LOG
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
2
≈ every 250th business day
SENATE
2
≈ every 250th business day
2 federal bodies named in federal lobbying filings · 2024-Q3–2026-Q2
Between 2024-Q3 and 2026-Q2, Michaels was named in lobbying filings reaching 2 federal bodies — from HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES to SENATE.
A Steep Estimated Pay Gap and a Tax Bill Below the Congressional Floor
Michaels files no current public financial disclosures with the SEC. That means no buyback data, no dividend records, and no audited executive compensation figures are available from the two-year period — the limit of what is visible ends at the boundary of its private ownership structure.
What can be estimated is the distance between the top and the bottom of the pay ladder. Michaels’ CEO pay ratio is not publicly disclosed; the best available figure is 454:1, based on AFL-CIO Executive Paywatch industry benchmarks for comparable companies in this sector. AFL-CIO Executive Paywatch. In plain terms: for every dollar a frontline Michaels worker took home, the person at the top is estimated to have pocketed $454. Because no stock buyback or dividend data is recorded, no per-worker raise calculation can be made — those figures do not exist in the public record.
Statutory federal rate
21%
This company
18.2%
Michaels's effective federal tax rate was 18.2% against the 21% statutory rate — 2.8 percentage points drained away.
What does exist is the company’s last public 10-K, filed before the 2021 Apollo take-private. That filing discloses a federal effective tax rate of 18.2% — 2.8 percentage points below the 21% federal statutory rate that Congress set.
Michaels’ 10-K discloses a rate reconciliation showing income taxes beginning at the 21% statutory rate, then adjusted by several items. The largest downward driver was a foreign tax rate differential of negative 5.5 percentage points — a reduction tied to income earned in foreign operations, most notably Canada, where the filing states pretax income from foreign operations totaled $122.0 million in fiscal 2020. Partially offsetting that reduction was a U.S. tax on foreign operations charge of 3.7 percentage points and state income taxes of 3.9 percentage points. The filing also records an $18.4 million net income tax benefit taken in connection with the CARES Act — a pandemic-era modification of federal net operating loss and business interest deduction rules — which contributed to the below-statutory final rate.
Michaels chose to pay 2.8 percentage points less than the rate Congress set. That gap is not an accounting accident — it is a structural decision that shifts real tax burden off Michaels’ balance sheet and onto everyone else. On top of that, Michaels holds Unrecognized Tax Benefits equal to 13.0% of its pre-tax income — contested deductions it has claimed on its taxes that the Internal Revenue Service has not yet agreed are valid.
Two OSHA Citations and a Public Grant That Nearly Cancels Them Out
Michaels’ compliance record over the two-year tracking period is narrow but not empty. Both recorded violations were issued by OSHA, and both fell under the category of workplace safety and health. Together they total $41,785 in penalties — a figure modest on the sector scale, but representing real citations at real locations where working conditions were found to fall short of federal standards. This places Michaels 6th in total penalty dollars among the 22 sector companies tracked.
The larger of the two cases landed in 2025: a $24,642 OSHA citation at one Michaels location. The second, a $17,143 OSHA citation, was issued in 2026 at a separate location. Two citations, two different sites, in back-to-back years — not an isolated incident.
Running alongside those citations is a single public subsidy: according to Good Jobs First Subsidy Tracker, a Michaels procurement entity collected $40,066 in California in 2024. The dollar amounts on both sides of the ledger are strikingly close — $41,785 in safety penalties paid out, $40,066 in public support taken in. The two figures nearly cancel each other to zero.
Regulatory Violations by Year
$42K · 2 cases
$25K
2025
1 case
$17K
2026
1 case