For years, Incompass Michigan and our partners in the Direct Care Worker Wage Coalition have stood before Michigan’s Legislature and made a simple argument: you cannot build a sustainable care system on a workforce that is not paid an equitable wage. The people who support Michiganders with developmental disabilities and behavioral health needs deserve to be paid fairly, and the agencies that employ them need the resources to make that possible.

Michigan has heard that argument. The state has made real policy commitments to improving direct care worker wages over the past several years. That progress is worth acknowledging.

But FY26 revealed something that cannot be ignored: making a commitment and honoring it are not the same thing.

As of this year, many Community Mental Health Services Programs have not provided any additional funding to providers and families for the direct care worker wage increase that was supposed to take effect January 1, 2026. The money was promised. The wage increase was required. But for too many workers across Michigan, the funding never reached providers. Required wage increases have not been consistently administered, workforce instability persists, and families and providers are left navigating uncertainty. Recent wage data indicates direct care workers are being paid the higher expected wage, but many providers have not received the funding to support this — and their sustainability is being put at risk.

This is the central challenge for FY27. Not whether Michigan should invest in its direct care workforce. The state has already decided that it should. The question is whether Michigan will actually fix the implementation process to ensure that commitment is honored.

The Direct Care Worker Wage Coalition has laid out a clear set of priorities for the FY27 budget, and it’s essential that Michigan’s lawmakers act on all of them.

• Existing wages must be protected. Current wage expectations must be maintained statewide. Administrative delays, procurement changes, and ambiguous guidance must not result in workers losing ground. If higher wages are required, the funding must accompany those requirements.
  
• Advance toward a $22 per hour wage benchmark. This is not an aspirational number plucked from thin air. It reflects inflationary pressures, minimum wage increases, and the ongoing workforce shortage that is leaving families without the care they need. Even at $22 per hour, direct care worker wages remain below the levels established under recent legal decisions. A competitive benchmark is essential to recruitment, retention, and continuity of care.
  
• Enforce wage pass-throughs with real accountability. FY26 demonstrated that guidance without enforcement does not work. Boilerplate and contractual language must clearly state that funding must be passed through to providers and workers, not relying on assumptions that this will happen on its own. Appropriations mean nothing if they do not translate into paychecks.
  
• Replace temporary ARPA dollars with sustainable General Fund investment. Michigan has been relying on expiring federal pandemic relief funds to support permanent wage obligations. Those dollars are running out. Without replacement, the state risks wage rollbacks, provider instability, and service disruptions that will fall hardest on the people who can least afford them. FY27 must include ongoing General Fund investment to put this workforce on stable footing.

On a final note, the state needs better data. We should be tracking whether wage funding actually reaches providers and workers, incorporating wage pass-through questions into workforce surveys, and increasing transparency around rate setting and distribution. You cannot fix a system you cannot see clearly.

Michigan has already made the wage commitments. The policy debate is settled. What remains is the harder, less glamorous work of making the system deliver on what it has promised. That is what FY27 must accomplish.

Fixing wage implementation is not an expansion of policy. It is the responsible completion of it.

A stable direct care workforce protects families, supports community-based care, and reduces long-term public costs. The workers who show up every day to help someone with a disability live independently and with dignity are counting on this Legislature to follow through. So are the individuals and families who depend on them.

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