Google, Business Leaders for Michigan and standardized tests
As we explored in my Google finds that STEM aren’t the most important skills post, Google determined that “the seven top characteristics of success at Google are all soft skills: being a good coach; communicating and listening well; possessing insights into others (including others different values and points of view); having empathy toward and being […]
Medicaid work requirements reduce opportunity for Michigan families
In our 2018 state policy agenda, we write that the state needs a strong social safety net in order to promote opportunity for Michigan families. Last week, Michigan’s Senate Republicans took a step towards cutting another large hole in that safety net, diminishing opportunity for Michigan’s working families. How this bill will fail to promote […]
Stop whining, raise wages
So says Neel Kashkari, president and chief executive of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Specifically Business North reports he said in a recent speech: “Almost everywhere I go, businesses tell me they can’t find workers. I always ask them the same question: ‘Are you raising wages?’ Usually, the answer is ‘no.’ When you want more of something […]
Homelessness and Michigan’s Children
Last week I heard a sad but important interview with Matthew Desmond, Pulitzer prize-winning author of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City and now founder of The Eviction Lab, an effort to compile and analyze eviction data nationally. He made a compelling case that eviction is a national emergency on par with the […]
The BA wage premium keeps growing
The chart below makes clear, once again, that those with a four-year degree or more earn the highest wages. And that advantage is growing. Unabated from 1979 through 2017. This data also make clear that the demand for those with some college or an associate’s degree is declining, not expanding, as conventional wisdom has it. We […]
A better way to help students pay for college
Tuition-free college is having a moment. States across the country are offering tuition-free programs at their community colleges. And last year New York State began the largest tuition-free program in the country, making all two- and four-year colleges tuition-free for families earning under $125,000. While this all sounds great, it’s actually not the best policy […]
Getting a BA means more work and higher wages
The Bureau of Labor Statistics each year publishes a chart that details the unemployment rate and median weekly earnings by education attainment for those 25 and older. The data for 2107 are below. Year after year the same story. Each time I look at the new data the question that comes to mind is “how […]
Many Michigan families are getting by–but still financially stressed
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why middle class life feels increasingly unstable over these last several years—especially in Michigan. Frequent readers of MFI know that we often cite the Michigan Association of United Way’s ALICE report, and its startling headline figure that 40 percent of Michigan households can’t afford basic necessities. Those figures […]