Physical Therapist Assistant Salary in Michigan 2026,
$61,670 Median | BLS Data by City

The published Michigan figure is $61,670 a year, or $29.65 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with a band from $35,700 at the 10th percentile to $78,600 at the 90th. That is 9.8% below the national median of $68,380. Michigan employs 4,520 PTAs at a location quotient of 1.42 — one of the largest and most concentrated PTA workforces in the country.

Grand Rapids-Wyoming-Kentwood at $68,700, well ahead of Battle Creek $66,310, Kalamazoo-Portage $62,860, Detroit-Warren-Dearborn $62,220 and Traverse City $61,290. The Grand Rapids figure is striking because it equals Michigan's own 75th percentile — the typical post in west Michigan pays what an assistant elsewhere in the state reaches only through home health or specialty work.

Yes. The Michigan Board of Physical Therapy, within the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, issues the PTA licence on a CAPTE-accredited programme and the National Physical Therapy Examination for PTAs, with continuing education at renewal. Practice must be under the supervision of a licensed physical therapist on terms the Board sets. With 4,520 assistants employed statewide, it is one of Michigan's most widely held allied-health licences.

Because supply and sector both push down. Michigan employs PTAs at 1.42 times the national rate, so there is no scarcity premium, and the largest share of that employment is in skilled nursing and post-acute care, where reimbursement caps what employers can pay. Neither factor reflects the quality of the work — a Michigan PTA carries the same licence and often a heavier caseload than a peer in a higher-paying state — but together they produce a median 9.8% under the national figure.

Michigan's flat 4.25% income tax applies at the same rate across the whole band, so the additional income from per-diem home-health visits or extra caseload is not taxed at a higher marginal rate. Watch the local layer, though: several Michigan cities levy their own income tax on residents. Against that, housing costs across most of the state are low relative to the $61,670 median, which materially improves the comparison with peer states like Utah at $61,980.

Because Grand Rapids-Wyoming-Kentwood has a concentrated, expanding hospital and outpatient sector competing for assistants, while Detroit-Warren-Dearborn has a much larger and more heterogeneous market with a deep candidate pool and a heavier weighting toward skilled nursing. The result is a Grand Rapids median of $68,700 — Michigan's own 75th percentile — against Detroit's $62,220, a gap of more than 10% inside a single state. For a licensed PTA, that is the most consequential decision available.

The $35,700 tenth percentile is not a full-time starting salary and should not be read as one. The gap to the $52,450 twenty-fifth percentile is characteristic of a workforce with a large part-time and per-diem component, which Michigan's home-health and outpatient sectors generate in volume. A newly licensed PTA taking a full-time post in Kalamazoo-Portage or Detroit-Warren-Dearborn should benchmark against the 25th percentile and the $61,670 median, not the bottom of the band.

Setting and geography, roughly equally — which is unusual. Home health paid per visit and acute rehabilitation are the settings that carry an assistant from the $61,670 median to the $68,700 seventy-fifth percentile. But so does simply working in west Michigan: Grand Rapids-Wyoming-Kentwood pays that seventy-fifth-percentile figure as its ordinary median. Above that, the $78,600 top decile is high-volume home health or a lead assistant role coordinating other PTAs. Skilled nursing, which employs the largest share of Michigan's assistants, sits at the bottom of the range.