The Working Parents Tax Credit is good for parents

The Working Parents Tax Credit (WPTC) is designed to substantially benefit both parents and employers. It is life-changing for parents and benefits employers by providing a strong incentive to work and work more. The WPTC would provide Earned Income Tax Credit recipient households with earnings of at least $10,000 from work a fully refundable tax […]

Working parents tax credit is good for employers

The Working Parents Tax Credit (WPTC) is designed to substantially benefit both parents and employers. It is life-changing for parents and provides at scale, strong incentives to work and work more at a time when employers are having difficulty finding reliable workers. The Working Parents Tax Credit (WPTC) would provide Earned Income Tax Credit recipient […]

How to close the 800,000 high-wage jobs gap

If Michigan had the same share of middle-class jobs as Massachusetts, it would be the equivalent of adding nearly 800,000 middle-class jobs to the state economy. Michigan––a state that once attracted people from across the planet to get high-wage jobs––is now a state where seven in ten Michigan jobs pay less than middle-class wages ($65,000 […]

Michigan in 39th, Minnesota is 12th

For nearly two decades we have recommended that Michigan make Minnesota the model for its economic policy. We chose Minnesota because year after year after year it is the most prosperous Great Lakes state. It not only is a neighboring state, it also is a cold weather state and a non-costal state. The recently released […]

My Senate child care hearing testimony

Thank you Chair Irwin and members of the Senate Housing and Human Services Committee for the opportunity to talk to you about child care and our working parents tax cut recommendation. Thank you Senator McDonald Rivet for your leadership on the issue. For more than three decades, Michigan Future, Inc. has championed common sense and […]

The paucity of high-wage middle-skills jobs

Conventional wisdom has it that there are myriads of high-wage jobs that don’t require a B.A. but do require something more than a high school degree. These jobs are labelled middle-skills jobs. The claim of so many high-wage middle-skills jobs is a central component of the you don’t need a B.A. messaging that students––particularly non-affluent […]

Education pays: the 2023 update

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 who work full time. Here is the data for 2023. Year after year after year the same story. Pre pandemic and post pandemic the same story. Each time […]

Michigan Talent Partnership: placemaking as high-wage economic development

Over three decades of rigorous data analysis has taught us one fundamental lesson: This is an economy where talent attracts capital. Where young talent goes, high-growth, high-wage, knowledge-based enterprises follow, expand, and are created. The new path to prosperity is concentrated talent. After being one of the most prosperous places on the planet for most […]

Michigan Future’s origins and current work

Our goal is rising income for all: creating a Michigan economy that as it grows benefits all. Where the measure of economic success is household income based, rather than unemployment and economic growth rate based. Our work is focused on getting a data-driven, big-change economic well-being state policy agenda enacted in a purple state. Where […]

The wide variety of good-paying jobs now and in the future

As we explored in our last post conventional wisdom about the value of a B.A. in obtaining a good-paying job and having a prosperous forty-year career is vastly underestimated. The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce calculates that 59 percent of today’s good-paying jobs require a B.A. and that will grow to 66 […]