Certified Nursing Assistant Salary in Michigan 2026,
$39,570 Median | BLS Data by City

The published Michigan figure is $39,570 a year, or $19.03 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with a band from $36,830 at the 10th percentile to $46,740 at the 90th. That is 6.4% below the national median of $42,260. Michigan employs 43,290 nursing assistants — one of the largest such workforces in the country — at a location quotient of 1.05.

Battle Creek at $45,470, then Ann Arbor $44,570, Traverse City $41,900, Niles $41,070 and Jackson $40,080. Both leaders pay close to the state's own 75th percentile as their ordinary median — Ann Arbor because of its academic medical centre, Battle Creek because it is a small market with concentrated institutional health employment and a limited candidate pool.

Complete a state-approved nurse aide training programme meeting the federal minimum of 75 hours, then pass the competency evaluation, which has written and skills components. LARA then lists you on the registry. Michigan does not license nurse aides as a profession — the registry is a listing, and it must be maintained by working for pay in a nursing-related capacity within the required period. There are no higher registry tiers, so any advancement is defined by the employer rather than by the state.

Yes, at the margin where it matters. Michigan taxes income at a flat 4.25%, so the overtime, double shifts and weekend differentials that make up a large part of real CNA earnings are taxed at the same rate as base pay rather than at a rising marginal rate. The caveat is local: several Michigan cities impose their own income tax on top of the state's, so a CNA working in one of those municipalities should check the local rate rather than assuming 4.25% is the whole charge.

As an entry point to health care, yes — training is short, the registry listing is quick, and Michigan pro-rates to roughly 6,100 openings a year, so work is always available. As a destination it is harder: the state median of $39,570 is 6.4% under the national figure, the band closes at $46,740, and most of the workforce is clustered near the floor. The realistic financial strategy is to move from long-term care into hospital work at the $44,910 seventy-fifth percentile, or to use the role as a bridge into an LPN or RN qualification.

Because supply is unrestricted and the dominant employer is long-term care. Michigan's registry route requires only a state-approved training programme meeting the federal 75-hour minimum and a competency evaluation, so there is nothing throttling entry into a 43,290-person workforce. Meanwhile the largest share of that workforce is employed in skilled nursing and assisted living, sectors whose reimbursement rates set a hard ceiling on wages. The result is a $39,570 median against a national $42,260.

It hides the sector split that determines everything. Long-term care and hospital CNAs are counted together, and they are paid on entirely different scales — the $38,160 twenty-fifth percentile is essentially a skilled-nursing figure and the $44,910 seventy-fifth is essentially a hospital one. A CNA using this page to evaluate an offer should first identify which sector it belongs to, because the statewide median describes the mixture rather than either component.

Sector, then shift. Moving from long-term care into an acute-care hospital is the single biggest step available and is most of the distance from the $39,570 median to the $44,910 seventy-fifth percentile. After that, night and weekend differentials, holiday premiums and overtime — all taxed at Michigan's same flat 4.25% — are what carry earnings toward the $46,740 top decile, alongside restorative aide and charge-aide responsibilities. Time served, by itself, moves the number very little.