What Home Health and Personal Care Aides earn in Ottawa County, MI
The median pay for Home Health and Personal Care Aides in Ottawa County, MI is $34,910 per year, which works out to $16.78 per hour. The figure comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics wage survey for the Grand Rapids-Wyoming-Kentwood, MI metropolitan area, the labor market that Ottawa County, MI belongs to. Half of the workers in this occupation earn more than the median and half earn less, which makes it a sturdier yardstick than an average that a few very high earners can pull upward.
The mean wage is $34,690, which is 0.6% below the median, so pay is spread fairly evenly. The survey counts about 8,160 people working in this occupation across the Grand Rapids-Wyoming-Kentwood, MI metropolitan area, so the estimate rests on a substantial pool of workers. Ottawa County, MI has roughly 301,203 residents, according to the population figures used by the rent data.
The salary range, from entry level to top earners
Pay for Home Health and Personal Care Aides in the Grand Rapids-Wyoming-Kentwood, MI metropolitan area is not one number. The lowest-paid tenth of workers earn up to $28,110 a year ($13.51 an hour), while the highest-paid tenth earn $42,670 or more ($20.51 an hour). That is a gap of $14,560 between the bottom and the top of the scale. The middle half of workers falls between $30,210 at the 25th percentile and $36,380 at the 75th percentile. A top-tier earner makes 1.5 times what someone at the bottom makes, so experience, certification and employer all matter.
What the hourly rate looks like
Converted to an hourly wage, the median for Home Health and Personal Care Aides in Ottawa County, MI is $16.78. A full-time schedule of 40 hours for 52 weeks adds up to $34,910, and the same salary is $2,909 a month before taxes or about $1,343 per biweekly pay period. After taxes the same job pays $13.91 per hour of take-home income, which is the number that actually has to cover rent and groceries.
About this occupation: Home Health and Personal Care Aides
The U.S. Department of Labor's O*NET database describes the work of Home Health Aides this way: "Monitor the health status of an individual with disabilities or illness, and address their health-related needs, such as changing bandages, dressing wounds, or administering medication. Work is performed under the direction of offsite or intermittent onsite licensed nursing staff. Provide assistance with routine healthcare tasks or activities of daily living, such as feeding, bathing, toileting, or ambulation. May also help with tasks such as preparing meals, doing light housekeeping, and doing laundry depending on the patient's abilities."
Core tasks recorded by O*NET include: "Maintain records of patient care, condition, progress, or problems to report and discuss observations with supervisor or case manager"; "Provide patients with help moving in and out of beds, baths, wheelchairs, or automobiles and with dressing and grooming"; "Provide patients and families with emotional support and instruction in areas such as caring for infants, preparing healthy meals, living independently, or adapting to disability or illness"; "Entertain, converse with, or read aloud to patients to keep them mentally healthy and alert".
This BLS pay category covers several related O*NET occupations, among them Home Health Aides, Personal Care Aides, so the wage figures describe the group as a whole.
Job outlook for Home Health and Personal Care Aides
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects national employment in this occupation to grow from 4,677,100 jobs in 2025 to 5,524,400 in 2035, a change of +18.1%, faster than the 3.5% projected for all occupations. The projection counts 760,500 openings a year on average, including positions created by growth and positions left by workers who retire or move to another occupation; that equals 16.3% of current employment each year.
Typical entry-level education: high school diploma or equivalent. Typical on-the-job training to reach competency: short-term on-the-job training. BLS lists a national median annual wage of $35,800 for this occupation; the Ottawa County, MI median of $34,910 is 2.5% below it.
How pay in Ottawa County, MI compares
Compared with the Michigan average
Pay for Home Health and Personal Care Aides in Ottawa County, MI is in line with the statewide figure: $34,910 locally against an employment-weighted Michigan average of $35,012, a difference of only $102 (0.3%). Within Michigan, the highest median we track for this job is $35,120 in Wayne County, MI.
Compared with the national average
Nationally, Home Health and Personal Care Aides earn an employment-weighted average of $34,899 across the contiguous United States, so $34,910 in Ottawa County, MI is essentially average. Keep in mind that a higher salary only helps if living costs do not rise faster, which is why the cost sections below matter as much as the headline number.
Where this job ranks in Ottawa County, MI
Among the 517 occupations with published wages in Ottawa County, MI, Home Health and Personal Care Aides ranks number 491 by median pay, ahead of about 5% of them. The best-paying occupation we track here is General and Operations Managers at $101,720 a year, which is $66,810 more than the median for Home Health and Personal Care Aides.
From gross pay to take-home pay
A salary of $34,910 does not arrive in full. We model a single filer with wage income only, the standard deduction and tax-year 2025 rules, and we keep the three tax layers apart: federal income tax, FICA (Social Security and Medicare) and state income tax. Together they take $5,968 a year, which leaves $28,942, or $2,412 a month.
Put another way, of every $100 earned, about $17 goes to taxes and $83 reaches the paycheck. The overall effective tax rate is 17.1%.
Federal income tax
After the $15,750 standard deduction, taxable income is $19,160. Federal brackets are marginal, so only the slice of income above each threshold is taxed at the higher rate; the last dollars of this salary fall in the 12% bracket. The resulting federal income tax is $2,061, an effective 5.9% of gross pay, well below the 12% marginal rate because the lower brackets are cheaper.
Social Security and Medicare (FICA)
Payroll taxes are a flat percentage of wages. Social Security takes 6.2% up to a wage base of $176,100, which costs $2,164 on this salary. Medicare takes 1.45%, or $506. FICA totals $2,671, which is 7.7% of gross pay.
State income tax in Michigan
Michigan income tax on this salary is $1,237 a year, or 3.5% of gross pay, after the state's own deductions and exemptions are applied. That is 60% of the federal income tax bill, and it comes out to $103 a month. Local taxes such as county or city income taxes are not included, so a few jurisdictions may withhold slightly more.
A cross-check with IRS data for Ottawa County, MI
IRS Statistics of Income data for Ottawa County, MI show an average adjusted gross income of $92,098 per return and an average effective federal income tax rate of 13.0% across all filers. Filers in the $25,000 to under $50,000 bracket, where this salary falls, paid an average of 5.3%, compared with the 5.9% estimated here for a single filer taking the standard deduction. Gaps between the two reflect filing status, dependents, credits and other income, none of which a single-person wage estimate includes.
Cost of living in Ottawa County, MI
Take-home pay only means something next to what life costs. We price four basics for one adult in Ottawa County, MI: a one-bedroom apartment, food, home energy and gasoline. All of them are converted to annual figures first, then compared with the $28,942 of take-home pay.
Rent
The HUD Fair Market Rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Ottawa County, MI is $1,357 a month, or $16,284 a year. A two-bedroom costs $1,546 a month. For Home Health and Personal Care Aides, a one-bedroom absorbs 56.3% of take-home pay and 46.6% of gross pay.
Food
The USDA Thrifty Food Plan (August 2026) puts the cost of a nutritious home-cooked diet for an adult at about $3,436 a year, which is $286 a month or $66.07 a week. That equals 9.8% of gross pay for Home Health and Personal Care Aides in Ottawa County, MI. It is a thrifty budget with no restaurant meals, so treat it as a floor.
Energy and gasoline
Using Michigan residential prices from the Energy Information Administration and national household averages for consumption, electricity costs about $2,039 a year and other home energy such as natural gas about $416, for $2,455 in total. Gasoline in Michigan averages $3.10 per gallon; at about 463 gallons a year (11,106 miles at 24 miles per gallon) fuel adds $1,436.
What is left over
Add the four basics together and living costs come to $23,611 a year, 82% of take-home pay. That leaves $5,330 a year, or $444 a month, for savings, transportation beyond fuel, health care, debt and everything else. That margin equals 15.3% of gross pay, a workable but modest cushion.
Local housing and commute data for Ottawa County, MI
The budget above covers rent, food, energy and gasoline. Three more local facts shape what a paycheck buys in Ottawa County, MI: property taxes, housing prices and the daily commute. The figures below are exact U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 2020-2024 5-year estimates for Ottawa County, MI, set beside the Michigan and national medians.
Property taxes in Ottawa County, MI
Homeowners in Ottawa County, MI pay a median of $3,313 a year in real estate taxes, 14% above the Michigan median of $2,904 and 6% above the U.S. median of $3,119. Against a median home value of $323,400, the median tax bill is 1.02% of that value (the ratio of the two county medians). For a worker paid the local Home Health and Personal Care Aides median of $34,910, a tax bill of that size would equal 9.5% of gross pay, which matters for anyone planning to buy rather than rent.
Rents, home prices and household income in Ottawa County, MI
Renters in Ottawa County, MI pay a median gross rent of $1,211 a month in the Census survey, 7% above the Michigan median of $1,129. HUD's Fair Market Rent for a one-bedroom apartment, which this site uses in the budget, is $1,357 a month; the two measures differ because the Census figure covers units of every size that renters already occupy, while the HUD figure is a one-bedroom benchmark. The median value of an owner-occupied home is $323,400, 40% above the Michigan median of $231,600. Median household income is $90,502, 24% above the Michigan median of $72,875, so a year of one-bedroom Fair Market Rent equals 18.0% of that income.
Commuting in Ottawa County, MI
Workers in Ottawa County, MI who travel to a workplace spend an average of 20.1 minutes each way, 17% below the Michigan average of 24.2. For someone who commutes five days a week, that is 3.4 hours of round-trip travel every week, a cost the budget does not price. 10.3% of workers in Ottawa County, MI work from home, compared with 15.1% nationally, which removes the commute for them.
Can Home Health and Personal Care Aides afford to live in Ottawa County, MI?
The 30% rent guideline
A common rule of thumb says rent should stay under 30% of gross income. For a gross salary of $34,910 that ceiling is $873 a month. The one-bedroom Fair Market Rent of $1,357 is $484 over it, so rent breaks the guideline. Put as a wage, covering a one-bedroom at the 30% guideline takes $26.10 an hour; the median for Home Health and Personal Care Aides is $16.78, which is 36% below that mark. Another way to see it: at $13.91 of take-home pay an hour, a one-bedroom takes about 22.5 working hours every week.
Splitting a two-bedroom
Sharing a two-bedroom at $1,546 a month means $773 each. Compared with renting a one-bedroom alone, that saves $7,008 a year. With a roommate, the yearly margin after the basics becomes $12,338.
How fast you can save
At $444 a month of margin, building a $10,000 emergency fund would take about 23 months. Setting aside half of the margin stretches the same goal to about 46 months. These figures ignore interest, raises and any spending beyond the four basics.
Frequently asked questions about Home Health and Personal Care Aides pay in Ottawa County, MI
What is the hourly wage for Home Health and Personal Care Aides in Ottawa County, MI?
The median is $16.78 per hour, based on $34,910 a year over 2,080 hours. Hourly pay runs from about $13.51 at the 10th percentile to $20.51 at the 90th percentile.
What is the take-home pay for Home Health and Personal Care Aides in Ottawa County, MI?
After federal income tax, FICA and state income tax, the median salary of $34,910 becomes $28,942 a year. That is $2,412 a month, $1,113 every two weeks or $557 a week.
What percentage of pay goes to taxes for Home Health and Personal Care Aides in Ottawa County, MI?
Total taxes are $5,968 a year, an effective rate of 17.1%: $2,061 federal income tax, $2,671 FICA and $1,237 Michigan income tax.
Is pay for Home Health and Personal Care Aides in Ottawa County, MI above the Michigan average?
It is about the same. The local median of $34,910 is within 0.3% of the Michigan average of $35,012.
Is a one-bedroom rent affordable on the median Home Health and Personal Care Aides salary in Ottawa County, MI?
A one-bedroom costs $1,357 a month against take-home pay of $2,412, which is 56.3% of take-home pay. That does not meet the 30%-of-gross guideline, which allows up to $873 a month.
How much is left after rent, food and energy for Home Health and Personal Care Aides in Ottawa County, MI?
About $444 a month ($5,330 a year) remains after a one-bedroom apartment, food, home energy and gasoline, which together cost $23,611 a year.
What hourly wage covers a one-bedroom in Ottawa County, MI at the 30% guideline?
$26.10 an hour for a full-time schedule, calculated as the $16,284 annual rent divided by 0.30 and by 2,080 hours. The median for Home Health and Personal Care Aides is $16.78.
How we calculated these numbers
Wages are May 2025 medians from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey for the Grand Rapids-Wyoming-Kentwood, MI metropolitan area; hourly-only values are annualized at 2,080 hours. Rents are HUD Fair Market Rents, food costs come from the USDA Thrifty Food Plan, and energy prices come from the Energy Information Administration. County-level tax statistics come from the IRS Statistics of Income.
Taxes use tax-year 2025 federal brackets, FICA rates and the Michigan rules for a single filer with wage income only. Figures are estimates for planning and comparison, not tax or financial advice, and they exclude local income taxes, benefits, retirement contributions and individual circumstances.