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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 Adam Davidson entitled Skills don’t pay the bills. Davidson wrote: The secret behind this skills gap is that it’s not…

For years we ended our presentations with a slide that said Michigan must get younger and better educated or we will get poorer. Where younger meant a place where Michigan was retaining those who grew up here and attracting mobile young talent from any place on the planet. And better educated primarily meant increasing the proportion of adults––particularly young adults––who…

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 to keep their jobs during downturns and if they lose a job get back to work quicker following a downturn.…

The 21st Century path to prosperity––to a broad middle class––is concentrating talent. Not factory jobs. Why? Because today's mass middle class are professionals and managers who work in offices, schools and hospitals. Not production workers who work in factories. You can see that clearly in the table at the bottom of this post. We compared Michigan to three states with…

A year ago Rivian, often described as the Tesla of trucks, announced that they were moving their headquarters from suburban Detroit to Irvine California. The announcement received hardly any Michigan press coverage. And, even more concerning, no reaction from Michigan's political and business elites. Two years earlier Amazon announced that, despite big subsidy offers from Detroit and Grand Rapids, no…