Terrific op ed in Crain's Detroit Business by Glenn Stevens Jr., executive director of MICHauto and Britany Affolter-Caine, executive director of Michigan’s University Research Corridor. They write: The most successful strategy to ensure Michigan's long-term competitiveness and economic prosperity is…
In a 2012 post entitled Low pay driving job vacancies I posited that the reason manufacturers had a shortage of skilled trades workers was low pay, not a skills shortage. That post featured a New York Times Magazine article by…
We have explored frequently that those with a four-year degree or more over a forty-year career work more and earn more than those with less education attainment. One of the reasons being that those with a B.A. or more tend…
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…
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…
Michigan's two-tier economy exists in large part because Michigan has a two-tier labor market. Michigan's high ALICE rate––38 percent in the strong 2019 economy––exists in large part because Michigan has a two-tier labor market. The reality is that in both…
At Michigan Future we are always working to understand the reality of the economy and labor market in Michigan. We try to get beyond the assumptions and the holdover picture we have of how people earn money, and how much…