We have proposed a big Earned Income Tax Credit expansion. Increasing the current state match from six percent to 60 of the federal credit. Doing so would increase the average state credit from $150 to $1,500. To us it is…
The 2010s were a great decade for America's big cities. The 2020 Census found that each of the top 25 cities in the country gained population. 14 of them had population growth of more than 100,000. New York City led…
More than a decade ago we asked if the state's economic development strategy worked, what state would you want Michigan to look like? Our answer was Minnesota. At the time the most prosperous state in the Great Lakes. And cold…
Google student loan crisis and you get to choose from 58 million results. Over and over and over again we are told that today's college students, particularly those who pursue a four-year degree, are saddled with debt so large that…
In our last post we looked at the skills business-led KC Rising describes as essential to career success: communication, collaboration, critical thinking, interpersonal skills, proactivity and executive function. In this post we want to look at where metro Kansas City…
The business-led metro Kansas City regional prosperity organization KC Rising recently published a terrific report defining what are the essential skills all students need for career success. Their definition: Communication – The ability to adapt within various channels, to connect…
This post answers the question "What are Michigan's top ten upper middle class occupations?" Where we define upper middle class as jobs that pay at least $70,539. Our calculation of what it takes to be upper middle class for a…
This post updates our analysis of the proportion of good-paying Michigan jobs that are in STEM fields. This time using our middle class jobs for a three person household threshold. Where we define middle class as payroll jobs than pay…
For the first time in a generation Michigan, its schools and local units of government have new revenue for public investments. An unprecedented amount of new money, anchored by the American Rescue Plan funding. Which, of course, raises the question…
In a previous post we detailed that Michigan has a two-tier labor market. One for those with a B.A. or more and the other for those without a B.A. The B.A. labor market is dominated by jobs that pay middle…