The cold weather population growth playbook
The Growing Michigan Together Council should look to Minnesota for the cold weather state population growth playbook. Conventional wisdom has had it for decades that Americans were abandoning cold weather states for the Sun Belt and the Mountain West. By and large that conventional wisdom is accurate, but not for Minnesota. Minnesota has not lost a congressional seat for […]
Our growing Michigan together recommendations
Michigan’s new Growing Michigan Together council and its workgroups have an opportunity to reverse four decades of Michigan population, employment, and household income decline. What follows is the Michigan Future Board‘s recommendations on what needs to be accomplished for creating a Michigan economy that achieves rising income for all. Michigan was a 20th Century high-prosperity state. Now we are […]
Coding vs foreign languages; Snyder vs Cuban
This post was originally published in November 2017. It is arguably more relevant today than then. As Farhad Manjoo details in a recent New York Times column coding will not be a high-paid occupation for much longer. As this post made clear technical/occupation specific skills are not foundational to successful forty-year careers. That what is […]
Jamie Dimon on expaning the Earned Income Tax Credit
Jamie Dimon, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co, in his latest Letter to Shareholders calls for a big expansion of the federal Earned Income Tax Credit. He writes: The gap between skilled and unskilled workers has been growing dramatically – so much so that unskilled labor has become […]
The Neighborhood Talent Concentration Initiative
Now is the time to make fundamental change in the state’s economic development playbook. What we have been doing has not worked. Michigan’s per capita income has fallen from around the national average at the turn of the century to a record low thirteen percent below: falling from 18th in 2000 to 38th in 2022. […]
Michigan median wages: From nineteen percent above to nine percent below
Michigan was one of the most prosperous places on the planet in 1979. Its per capita income three percent above the national average. No more! In 2022 Michigan’s per capita income was 13 percent below the nation’s. The worst Michigan has even been compared to the nation. The prime reason for this four decade long […]
842,000 Michigan children live in a working ALICE household
This post is a correction and update of a post originally published in April 2022. Important new report from United for ALICE entitled ALICE in focus: Children in financial hardship. United for ALICE found that nearly one million (946,119) children (17 or younger) in Michigan — 44% of all children — lived in a household […]
Employers can help make EITC expansion a success
Terrific news from Lansing. Starting with the 2022 tax year the state match for the federal Earned Income Tax Credit is now 30 percent up from six percent. A historic win for Michigan’s working families and Michigan employers. Michigan goes from one of the least generous state matches of the federal EITC to one of […]
EITC expansion not quite complete
One more important step to go to complete the historic expansion of the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit. Starting with the 2022 tax year the state match for the federal credit is now 30 percent up from six percent. A huge win for Michigan’s working families! Expanding Michigan’s EITC from six to 30 percent provides […]
Foundation skills in the age of Artificial Intelligence
A little more than three years ago the Grand Rapids Public Museum hosted Outsmarting the Robots: Redesigning education from the classroom to the halls of Lansing. The conference was organized around the question “How do we redesign our system for learning to build the 21st century skills that matter to meeting the needs of our children, economy, society, and world?” […]