The police officer salary in Michigan state is $46,500. This is significantly less than the median pay of the police officers in the state who are in the top 99% of the state’s police departments as measured by the Michigan State Police salary database.
I know what you’re thinking: it’s not all bad news. The fact is that the police officer salary in Michigan is lower than the national average, and this is especially significant since the state is already in the top 10 in the nation in minimum wage, having only been at the bottom of the pack in the last five years.
That said, there are some positive implications for police officers. According to the Pew Research Center, police officers in the United States are more likely to be older than the general population, and in the last decade have been in the top 1 percent of their age group in income (the richest demographic in the country).
This is all to the good, but there is also a downside. The top 1 percent of income earners pay around 33 percent of the national income tax, and that may be a problem.
The Pew Research Center found that the median annual salary of a police officer in Chicago, Illinois is $49,000 (compared to the average of $43,000). That’s pretty freaking good, but it’s not enough to live on in the city, so many police officers are moving to Michigan, where they can make more. The average salary for a Michigan police officer is $65,000, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Chicago Police Chief Garry McCarthy is now making more than any other city official in the country. The average Chicago police officer makes a bit over 60,000 a year. McCarthy’s salary in 2014 was over 63,000. While that’s pretty good it is less than the median salary of police officers in Michigan, which is over 75,000.
In fact, even though we live in Michigan, we’re not the only ones with police officers making more than the median police officer for a city, and this is a good year for police officers in Michigan. In 2013, a police officer for the City of Detroit made over 78,000. In 2014 our police chief made over 80,000. It’s an unusual year, as many other city officials are making significantly less than the median police officer.
In fact, the police chief of the city of Detroit is also the mayor. In fact the police chief is also the mayor of the city of Detroit. So when I said that police officer salary in Michigan is over 75,000, I mean it. And that’s not just the median, either. The number of police officers in cities like Detroit and Lansing is about the same as the total number of city employees.
The police chief makes around $70,000, a number that’s even higher than the median police officer salary in the state of Michigan. The median police officer salary in Michigan is about $51,000. However, the number of police officers in certain cities are much lower than the local median police officer salary. The number of police officers in Detroit is about 2,900. The number in Lansing is about 2,200, while the number in the city of Chicago is about 3,000.
The current system of state employee compensation is that a police officer’s salary is based on the number of officers that they have on the force. Thus, for example, the police chief in Michigan makes a salary that is 60% of the state’s maximum pay for a police chief with 18 officers on the force.