This post summarizes a short report we wrote on the benefit cliff in Michigan, which can be found here: Mapping and Addressing Benefit Cliffs in Michigan In early 2023, Senator Kristen McDonald-Rivet established a working group to explore the so-called…
There’s a lot of attention right now on the state’s population. We’re not attracting and retaining enough young people, our workforce is aging, and our economy is sputtering. In response to these challenges, the governor has formed the Growing Michigan…
A statewide survey conducted by the Detroit Regional Chamber earlier this year reported some startling data about Michiganders’ views on the value of a four-year college degree. As reported in the survey, just 26.5% of Michigan voters said a college…
New York Times opinion columnist Nicholas Kristof recently wrote an article celebrating the growth in reading scores among Mississippi 4th graders. Of Mississippi, Kristof writes “It is lifting education outcomes and soaring in the national rankings. With an all-out effort…
In my last post, I looked at the connection between the educational attainment of the working-age population of a region or state, and the prosperity of that region or state. The short story is that at both geographic levels, the…
Most discussions about economic development in Michigan are pretty narrowly focused. How many jobs did we “create?” What companies did we “attract”, or retain? Manufacturing jobs receive the lion’s share of attention, and it’s generally understood that in order to…
Every year, the US Census Bureau publishes estimates of the poverty rate in the U.S. There is the official poverty measure (OPM), which is what we use to determine eligibility for government assistance, and the supplemental poverty measure (SPM), which…
The appropriate size and scope of our social safety-net has long been a matter of disagreement between politicians, researchers, and advocates on the left and right. But one thing that seemingly everyone can agree on is that no matter how…
This post originally ran in February 2017. We are rerunning it because of its relevance to the discussion we should be having about what post-pandemic education should looks like for all students. Whether in school or learning at home. Nearly…
Test scores have become the sole fixation of our education system. At least since the passage of No Child Left Behind in 2001, states, districts, schools, principals, teachers, and students have been labeled successful or failing based on the single,…