Preparing for a career not a first job
This is a rerun of a 2013 post. I thought it worth rerunning because it describes well how one puts together a successful forty-year career in an economy where the nature of work is constantly changing. It is about a Michigan State student developing in Heather McGowan’s framing her career success operating system, not a […]
Are we Michissippi?
Another list of economic well being that you don’t want to be on that Michigan is on. This one comes from Harvard University economists Benjamin Austin, Edward Glaeser, and Lawrence Summers. They map the growth in the share of men who are not working across major regions of the United States, revealing that the share of […]
No talent, no transit, no Amazon
So Grand Rapids offered Amazon up to $2 billion in tax breaks to locate their HQ2 in their region. As John Gallagher points out in a Detroit Free Press article on the topic, big tax breaks were offered across the nation. What is more noteworthy in Gallagher’s article are the comments by Birgit Klohs, metro […]
Google, Snyder and McGowan on essential skills
In her Linkedin column Heather E. McGowan calls for a transformation of the mission of education. From one that prepares people for a job to one that prepares people for continuous job loss. Largely because of machines increasingly doing the work now done by humans, we are now in an economy where losing a job will […]
California: Higher taxes and surging
Turns out that California since 2010 has contributed 20 percent of the country’s GDP growth with 12 percent of the country’s population. As we explored previously this growth occurred primarily after California passed a major tax increase in 2012. And was written off as in permanent decline by many during the Great Recession. Conventional wisdom had […]
A vibrant central city is vital to regional prosperity
Updated data from Joe Cortright of Impressa on the continuation of young professionals choosing to live in central cities. Cortright, using American Community Survey data, looks at the change in the number of 25-34 year olds with a four-year degree living in the largest city in each region with a population of one million of […]
Republican Governor and business community pushing for higher taxes
You read the headline right. In Oklahoma, not Michigan. NPR, in a story entitled Tax cuts put Oklahoma in a bind, now Gov. Fallin wants to raise taxes, provides an overview of the push to raise taxes in a deeply red state. NPR writes: In her State of the State address Monday, Gov. Mary Fallin […]
Needed for all: education for losing job(s)
Must-read Linkedin column by Heather E. McGowan entitled Preparing Students to Lose Their Job. It is the best description I have read on the need to change the mission of education from one that prepares people for a job to one that prepares people for continuous job loss. Largely because of machines increasingly doing the work now […]
Regional prosperity increasingly linked to four-year degrees
In my last post we look at the growing wage premium for those who have a four-year degree or more. Debunking the conventional wisdom that our kids are now better off foregoing a four-year degree to go into the skilled/professional trades. In this post I want to explore the importance of four-year degrees to state […]
The four-year degree wage premium is growing
The core lesson Michigan Future has learned in more than a quarter of a century of research about the Michigan and national economy is that the single best predictor of individual and community prosperity is a four-year degree. This, of course, is now not conventional wisdom. We are constantly bombarded by way too many business […]