Problem #1: Inadequate Labor Supply
Health care providers are facing crippling staffing shortages that affect access to car
If unaddressed, this problem will only get worse. According to a report by the Michigan
Health Council studying the job market for 36 common healthcare occupations, ”Nearly all
occupations are projected to experience workforce shortages between now and 2032.”
Top Projected Needs:
- Nursing Assistants: 61,907
- Medical Assistants: 24,510
- Home Health & Personal Care Aides: 16,831Dental Assistants: 14,864
- Dental Assistants: 14,864
- Pharmacy Technicians: 13,951
- Occupations Requiring an MSW: 10,702
Problem #2 – Overregulation is Further Limiting Supply
Michigan law excludes hundreds of thousands of people from the workforce because of
old criminal convictions1. This includes many social workers and other professionals who have completed their professional training and obtained occupational licenses but are barred from working in hospitals or as Medicaid providers by state law. These laws exclude people with any felony conviction from having a job with access to patients or patient records within 10 years of the end of their possible maximum sentence (including community supervision). Misdemeanor convictions carry exclusions of 1-5 years, depending on severity.
Solution to Problems 1 & 2: Let health care providers hire people with records!
Projected Impact: Hundreds of thousands of people — just look at the annual number of
criminal convictions in Michigan!
- Felony Convictions: Michigan issues 35,000 to 40,000 felony convictions annually (more historically), which means more than 350,000 people are locked out of the health care workforce due to the 10-year felony exclusion period alone.
- Misdemeanor Convictions: There are about 200,000 non-traffic misdemeanors and 170,000 traffic misdemeanors annually in Michigan. Misdemeanor exclusions impact fewer people, but conservatively we estimate they affect tens of thousands in addition to felony exclusions.
- Creating a Health Care Jobs Pipeline: There are currently no health care workforce training programs in prison, jails or reentry programs because of state law. Eliminating or reducing the barriers will increase demand and positioning of health care training in reentry/MichiganWorks.
Why Support These Bills?
- This is a common-sense structural solution:
This is the only structural solution to labor supply problems that can be
implemented quickly. Other attempts to expand the labor pool and pipeline
will either only work at the margins or will take a long time to implement. - It’s not government’s job to regulate the labor pool in this way:
It should be up to businesses whether to hire someone or not — the
government should not categorically decide. The consequences of the
current approach have been bad for employers and workers alike. - Businesses have incentives to appropriately vet candidates and hire
with care:
Employers already do background checks due to reputational concerns,
negligent hiring liability, etc. There is no evidence that additional regulation is
needed. - Michigan’s state law is overbroad:
Our state law goes far beyond the federal conviction-based exclusions, which
are narrowly targeted (e.g. fraud, patient abuse, drug felony conviction, and
compliance-related offenses) and do not suggest that convictions unrelated
to the program or patient care are even relevant. States went further than
federal law for their own reasons — Michigan, for example, did so in 2006
— and the overinclusive categorical exclusions they have used cannot be
justified based on risk. - This solution supports public safety:
Research establishes that people who are years removed from a criminal
conviction pose a low recidivism risk that compares favorably to risk from the
general public (i.e. those without past convictions).
Relevant laws include MCL 330.1134a (Psych Facilities), 333.20173a (Hospitals), 400.734b (Adult Foster Care); see also [Medicaid Provider Eligibility Criteria]
Last updated Jan. 13, 2025
