The Partnership for Michigan’s Health reports that healthcare directly employed nearly 602,000 Michigan residents in 2018, demonstrating that healthcare continues to be the largest private-sector employer in the state. The 2020 edition of The Economic Impact of Healthcare in Michigan shows that direct healthcare workers in Michigan earned $39.3 billion that year in wages, salaries and benefits. Hospitals alone employ more than 234,000 individuals in the state.
Direct healthcare employment helps create additional jobs that are indirectly related to or induced by healthcare. These healthcare-supported jobs are held by more than 552,000 people who earned about $27.6 billion in 2018 in wages, salaries and benefits. Together with their employers, the nearly 1.2 million workers in the healthcare sector contributed almost $18.6 billion that year in local, state and federal taxes. These taxes include Social Security, income, motor vehicle, sales, property, corporate and more.
The report was compiled by the Partnership for Michigan’s Health, which consists of the Michigan Health & Hospital Association, the Michigan State Medical Society and the Michigan Osteopathic Association, all based in the greater Lansing area. It uses 2018 data, which is the most recent available.
“Michigan’s healthcare providers are important economic engines for the state and their local communities. Hospitals and health systems not only protect residents’ health and wellbeing day in and day out, they provide more than 40% of healthcare’s significant economic activity in Michigan,” said Michigan Health & Hospital Association CEO Brian Peters.
“The Economic Impact of Healthcare in Michigan report is an amazing amount of data in an easy-to-use webpage. The impact of healthcare on our economy cannot be overstated. Healthcare is our state’s largest creator of private-sector jobs and the salaries from those jobs contribute to local economies across the state,” said Kris Nicholoff, executive director of the Michigan Osteopathic Association.
"The economic impact studies confirm that physicians are job creators in every setting: hospital or office, city or state,” said Julie L. Novak, CEO of the Michigan State Medical Society. “Michigan physicians pride themselves on providing outstanding quality care to their patients and, clearly, that aim provides stability and an opportunity for growth.”
The 15th edition of The Economic Impact of Healthcare in Michigan was compiled using IMPLAN® V.3.1 software to quantify healthcare’s significant economic impact in the state. The data represents direct, indirect[1] and induced[2] healthcare jobs; taxes paid by those workers and their employers; and salaries, wages and benefits earned. The report is an online, interactive tool that allows users to examine these economic impacts from a statewide perspective and by region, county or congressional district. It is available at www.economicimpact.org.
[1] Indirect jobs are those created to support a larger employer or industry (for example, a laundry that cleans linens for a hospital).
[2] Induced jobs are those created by the spending of people who work in the indirect jobs (for example, a restaurant waiter who serves the laundry workers).