Check out: http://www.milmi.org/

This is the part of state guv'mint that tells us that under Granholm, 85,000 jobs were lost, that the unemployment rate has gone up from 4.7% to 7.1%, and rightly fuels Republican campaign ads.

The interesting bit is that the total # of people employed has remained fairly constant throughout Granholm's tenure, at about 4.7 million people for each year she's been in office. Using the above site's Data Explorer's Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS), I searched for state of Michigan's Annual Employment #s ('cept for 2006, since the year isn't done):

2006 4,726,000 (as of August, seasonally adjusted)
2005 4,754,000
2004 4,717,000
2003 4,696,000 (Granholm's first year)
2002 4,734,000 (Engler's last year)

So, how are people -losing- mucho jobs under Granholm if the number of people with jobs is the same? The answer lies in the total number of people who are considered to be the labor force. Doing the same query above for "labor force" yields:

2006 5,086,000 (August)
2005 5,097,000
2004 5,073,000
2003 5,055,000
2002 5,049,000

Playing math with difference of those two numbers between 2002 and 2006 is where "85,000 jobs lost" comes from, and the rate of unemployment is the % of labor force employed.

The real problem here doesn't seem to be so much jobs as the growing labor force. This would explain some of the other statistics that came out, saying that while the rest of the country lost 6% of their real wages in the Bush era, Michigan lost 12%. With more people fighting for less jobs in the same area, and those people not going away (contrary to all the propaganda about working folks leaving Michigan in droves), wages will go down.

The real questions to ask are -- why is the total labor force growing? Is it immigration, redefining of what "labor force" means, people having too many babies, or what? Why are they staying? Why are people on both sides saying our labor force shrinks when it grows? What should we do about it, if anything? Maybe what we need is to push select folks out of Michigan and rightsize the labor force for the number of available jobs, but how would you apply that logic to a state's population rather than a business?

You can't incentivise leaving the state. Well, wait. You can always have government buy-up already owned private property. That's been done before and is, in effect, incentivising the flight of a population. There's also pricing a population out of the area as well (via zoning or other forms of regulation), that certainly costs less in initial public funds.

While that's certainly interesting to think about, shouldn't the idea be to grow the state's employment capacity along with its population? Not kick people out of the state because they want jobs too. In other words, while its unexpected to see that perhaps plant closings and the overall auto industy down-sizing aren't crippling the area as much as advertised, isn't employment stagnancy just as bad as retardation in the face of already high unemployment and the workforce increasing (no matter how its calculation may have changed)?

Assuming we know who this labor force is and why they're growing despite their not being jobs for them, yeah growing to meet the needs might be the right appoach. There may be other options. If most labor force growth here results from poor kids having too many babies, them pushing birth control and kicking teen moms in the ass may make the most sense. Or maybe, we need to be less friendly to H1Bs or some class of ne'er-do-well? Should we jigger some particular numbers with artificial stimulus to eliminate who counts as "labor force", counting on the appearance of recovery to kickstart some real investment and balance things out.

I just don't know, though.

No big player speaks of what's going on in meaningful terms. Granholm's camp is just now speaking of 24,000 jobs really gained, while DeVos cites 85,000 jobs lost, emphasizing that big word THOUSAND but not explaining what the numbers mean. No one's says "statewide employment is flat". Few say that buying power is down, which is (I think) where people really feel the squeeze. People want REAL jobs, not Wal-Jobs and McJobs. Folks on both sides speak of this exodus of people leaving Michigan to find work which, to whatever extent that it's real, is being backfilled. Granholm's pushing higher education as a way out, but nothing particularly focused (in contrast to her community college plans). Check out:

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006609130310

"So, Jenny, given that the # of college graduates has grown, why hasn't that helped our bottom line? Is it because they're all immigrants with engineering degrees? Perhaps we should kick out those Chinese close to home?"

Oh oh... I feel a Dr. Evil pinky-to-the-mouth moment...

If most labor force growth here results from poor kids having too many babies, them pushing birth control and kicking teen moms in the ass may make the most sense.
Don't we already have a low state-wide population growth rate? I don't think the right decision is stopping it altogether.
http://www.michigan.gov/hal/0,1607,7-160--133031--,00.html


Or maybe, we need to be less friendly to H1Bs or some class of ne'er-do-well?
It's my general starting opinion that educated workers, no matter where they are from, are good things. If "fixing" unemployment comes to just kicking out the unemployed (or kicking out the employed so their jobs can be taken over by the unemployed), then what's really the point?


Should we jigger some particular numbers with artificial stimulus to eliminate who counts as "labor force", counting on the appearance of recovery to kickstart some real investment and balance things out.
While I don't deny this sort of thing can create some sort of improvement, hasn't the time for those types of "non-moves" come and gone? Aren't those type of tactics usually used to stem the tide of a temporary storm rather than as a rutter to turn the entire ship around?


No big player speaks of what's going on in meaningful terms. Granholm's camp is just now speaking of 24,000 jobs really gained, while DeVos cites 85,000 jobs lost, emphasizing that big word THOUSAND but not explaining what the numbers mean. No one's says "statewide employment is flat". Few say that buying power is down, which is (I think) where people really feel the squeeze. People want REAL jobs, not Wal-Jobs and McJobs. Folks on both sides speak of this exodus of people leaving Michigan to find work which, to whatever extent that it's real, is being backfilled. Granholm's pushing higher education as a way out, but nothing particularly focused (in contrast to her community college plans). Check out:

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006609130310

"So, Jenny, given that the # of college graduates has grown, why hasn't that helped our bottom line? Is it because they're all immigrants with engineering degrees? Perhaps we should kick out those Chinese close to home?"

Oh oh... I feel a Dr. Evil pinky-to-the-mouth moment...
I agree with the political statements and the lack of a real focus to the "just get more degrees" plan, and I'm probably terribly biased having grown up in the single-parent home of a teacher, but even if it doesn't fix the employment problem I'm all for increasing the access to higher education.


About 77% of grads who were Michigan natives still live in the state. In contrast, only 10% of U-M graduates who came to Ann Arbor from another state still live in Michigan. But those out-of-state graduates were the ones the state might have expected to lose anyway.
Wayne State University reported similar figures for its graduates.

With stats like "near 50% of college graduates leave the state" (even if they are out-of-state students) increasing the number of degree required jobs sounds like a good move to me. Now maybe that doesn't help the ones who are hurting the most right now (and I'm more than willing to admit that) but it certainly seems like an area of the economy that is fertile. Afterall, what are the numbers for out-of-state Sunbelt students leaving those states? Plus, there's always the trickle-down theory.

To be clear, I'm just trying to get the right questions out on the table. The spook-the-vote tactics are inevitable, but they only tell part of the picture, and can be quite misleading.

Yeah, I think an educated workforce is going down the right path, though I worry about specifics. If we want to be a hub for more biotech, what state-wide educational stuff encourages children and young adults to go that direction, and to stay in town? We have (horrifically) drug company friendly law, so how are we wooing big pharma beyond Pfizer? How many kids are scrambling to get into the "alternative energy" sector? Heck, I know a couple kids who thought Enron was about alternative energy. <sigh> Oh, I'm also concerned with needless "education creep" in some professions Ask your teacher mom about certs, continuing ed, requirements for masters degree, and other crap today's teachers have to go through, as an example.

As for population growth, my theory is that we're probably spending money "somewhere" to encourage population growth without having the jobs to support it. I'd love to figure out what that is, and divert that money to stuff that brings jobs in, then plan growth at a rate that maintains high quality of life, avoids too much suburban sprawl, etc. We've got lots of lakes and weather issues and such, so we've got natural limits on community sizes, won't ever be a big haven for old people, etc. Population control is a powerful economic stimulus -- look at China. We don't need anything radical like drowning our baby girls because they're not boys, but a little thinking here might conceivably go a long way.

A few important factors to consider:

Studies like these rarely pay enough attention to the quality of jobs gained or lost. Thus, when 50,000 high paying auto industry jobs are replaced by 50,000 call-bank jobs paying $32,000 a year, it is considered a wash.

The decline of the auto industry in Michigan has been a 20 year process and no current governor can/should be blamed for the effects of it. It's economic survival of the fittest.

A good chunk of the increase in the work force can be attributed to formerly single income families becoming double income families out of necessity. When a husband who was making 80k at GM loses his job and can only find a job paying 50k to replace it, the wife will enter the workforce as well to attempt to allow the family to maintain their lifestyle.

I agree, thus my initial remark about jobs vs. McJobs or Wal-Jobs. :)

Job quality is a big deal. The biggest growing bracket is "self-employed, but making peanuts". The stock market's at its highest point ever, rivaling the Clinton years. But, median incomes are 6% lower than when Bush started, 12% in Michigan. Factor in the increased insurance costs and cost-of-living bumpage and a lot of folks don't feel "big recovery" in the air. Most personal wealth gains have come from asset ownership, where many folks in "richer" states are a bubble burst and rate hike away from being in Michigan territory.

Say, speaking of which, between GMAC (largest private mortgage underwriter at one point), Rock/Quicken (biggest online lender), etc. the state could've been the mortgage capital outside of Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae. Did we ever see either side talking of specific steps to promote or appeal to that market -- make racketeering even more legal in some way to better prey on people?

^Devos is running for Governor.

As for the education creep. You're going to have to use a different example than teachers to get your point across. The couple classes every few years my mom went through were never nearly a hardship (she usually said she enjoyed getting back on the other side of the desk once in a while) as actually teaching in Detroit. As for masters requirements, education degrees are like the easiest things there are to study for (sorry Mood) outside of ... well, I was going to say "physical education" but that's an education degree. My mom has been retired for a while now but one of my closest friends is a new teacher and will have his masters in math education well before I finish my masters (he is a bit older than me) because he can take them 3 at a time during the school year as the coursework is total bullshit or the former teacher instructors curve the class so much that 80% turns into 105% (true story there). Then there's always the summer classes where he has no work obligations at all and can pretend he's back in undergrad for a semester. He definately doesn't mind the year and a half of a bit of extra work compared to the pay increase for life. Certification is a bitch since the way its set up you pretty much have to either save up a fund to pay yourself during the required student teaching period or find a night job and work 80 hours a week. But again, that's a one time thing before you even start. Pretty much every state licensed profession has a continuing education provision, none that I have any personal experience with are anything I'd call "hardships".

As for the population growth thing, I don't know. We're the 8th largest state and our population growth is in the very bottom of the nation. I'd assume we aren't spending any real money on it. Of course its usually the case that government is spending some money on everything but I don't understand why you focus on that as a key issue for job creation.

Dick hasn't said dick about much of anything business-related, least of how he will make racketeering more legal in a way that spurs on industry. All I've seen is "the SBT is bad for business". That's all fine and good but it neglects that little bit about how Michigan's overall taxes aren't horrific. Since this was my rant about statistics, check out:

http://taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/461.html#mich

Our tax burden has been below the national average overall, if you believe their calculations.

It's not clear if increasing the education requirements does anything other than prop up the educational system. If the master's degree is a piece of cake, what's the difference between the teacher with the bachelor's vs. the master's as far as teaching ability? Don't waste people's time with bullshit. Another example is nursing, which used to be a skilled trade job needing a 2 year degree, but has been morphing into one that calls for a 4 year degree, still pays like a skilled trade, and now we can't really find anyone domestically to do the job. And I have to laugh when I see "run a small Windows network" jobs as something that mandates a B.S. in CS. "Yup, I learned quick sort algorithms in C++ so I could click 'Ok' to reinstall." -- riiiggghhhttt...

Why am I fixated on population growth and shifting? Honestly, because I wasn't expecting our labor force to be growing at all, and we seem to be at something of a critical mass. The more I dig into it, the spookier it gets. Uncontrolled growth is a great way to water down the standard of living for all concerned. Even a little tweaking and planning here may go a long way.

Interesting read, thanks.

Another myth-debunk I read in the paper showed that prior to Granholm taking office the job loss rate was much higher (over 100k jobs lost). She hasn't reversed the trend (how could you?), but she has slowed it down.

The "Granholm v. DeVos" thread = kiddie table

This thread = adult table

Another myth-debunk I read in the paper showed that prior to Granholm taking office the job loss rate was much higher (over 100k jobs lost). She hasn't reversed the trend (how could you?), but she has slowed it down.
In 2001-2002, with a Republican-controlled state legislature, judiciary, and governor, Michigan's job loss was at its most severe. We insert a Democratic governor and poof -- job loss has slowed down. Obviously, if you go back to a Republican, the job loss will again escalate, right? <laughs>

When I see Granholm blaming Bush and and DeVos wanting to tax cut us to the bottom, I keep on thinking about the "donor state" problem:

http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/347.html
http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/266.html

Like most Midwest states, Michigan is a donor state, paying more in federal tax dollars than it gets back. As of 2004, the 8th most populous state is:

20th out of 50th in terms of per-capita federal tax dollars paid
46th out of 50th in terms of per-capita federal dollars received
38th out of 50th in terms of ratio of tax paid to tax received

Historically, what we get back from the federal government hasn't been a particularly "Republican" or "Democratic" issue. Regardless of the state's leadership relative to the nation, independent of tax we pay out, we bite the big one in terms of total federal monies coming in, like other Midwest states. Though there's an obvious point of unity in terms of the Great Lakes, that's never really crystallized into a like-minded voting "bloc". We've generally preferred to compete with each other more than cooperate.

What gets interesting is looking at the ratio of tax paid to tax received. Out of the 32 states that do get >$1 for every $1 they pay in taxes, 27 of them voted for Bush in 2004. If you look at Midwest states that broke for Bush, they had pretty much $1 for every $1, but in terms of per-capita dollars were still near the bottom like all Midwest states. In other words, they're getting tax breaks and not paying as much in per-capita taxes as Michigan and other Midwest states are. The approach to winning the Midwest hasn't involved investing in the Midwest so much as it has "not taxing key states as hard" -- let the Midwest race to the bottom on crumbs.

If I were looking for stuff to improve Michigan's lot in life, I'd be looking at a united Midwest/Great Lakes front to compete with the Solid South and New England. The principal goal would be to draw federal money to drive growth and investment. I wouldn't particularly care if our tax burden went up, as long as federal $ went up along with it. Right now, we're fragmented and easily divided and conquered as a consequence.

wow, good read, guys.

Since there's a lot of talk about how the nation is engaged in this massive "recovery" that Michigan isn't, let's look at the nationwide statistics at <drum roll please> the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Here's the page where you can dig for various historical stats:

http://www.bls.gov/data/home.htm

Counting total jobs, based on the national statistics (Historical Data for the "A" tables), 8 million jobs were created nationwide from when Bush started (143,800,000 to 151,799,000 -- a little over 5%). 5% in nearly 6 years isn't bad, but it's not mind-blowing, especially if you factor population growth and "human" inflation. A fair bit of Bush's unemployment % gains come from the labor force not growing as fast as overall population.

The nationally-collected statistics pertaining to Michigan (Local Area Unemployment Statistics) mostly back up the state of Michigan stats I posted earlier about Michigan not losing jobs. In Michigan, depending on seasonal vs. unseasonal view, either 154,970 new jobs were created (from 4632173 to 4787143 -- 3%) or 24,070 new jobs were created (from 4702006 to 4726096 -- .5%) from when Granholm started in January 2003 to August 2006.

The key word above is "mostly". An interesting tidbit caught my eye:

Both sites agree that our unemployment as of today is 7.1%. But,
milmi.org says our unemployment was at 4.7% when Granholm started.
bls.gov says it was at 6.7% when Granholm started.

6.7% vs. 4.7%?! That's HUGE,contradicting DeVos ads stating that unemployment is 50% worse under Granholm. Looking some more, you'll see that our unemployment has averaged around 7% throughout all of Granholm's term, with 9 months of unemployment being above 7.1%. (The big 50% bump happened under John Engler's last term, in fact.) What's the deal, and why a big discrepancy? Well, the bls.gov charts reflect "revised population controls and model reestimation through 2005" -- fudging with the labor force, in other words.

To sum up: If you believe your federal government, Granholm hasn't made unemployment significantly better (or worse), but had inherited an unemplyment situation much worse than what's been represented by DeVos. How you count labor force is as important as how you count jobs, and labor force is harder to pin down. When you ask yourself "are you better off now than you were 4 years ago", take a hard look at how things really were here 4 years ago.

granholm should hire you mxy[smilie=burgerking.: :2thumbsup:

The biggest problem is that Michigan will never be informed of all these manipulations of numbers. I wonder why Granholm doesn't attack these numbers directly. Put out an ad on that. Bring it up in a debate or something. I think she's going to win anyway, but if she destroyed his notion that she lost Michigan all these jobs she'd win in a landslide. DeVos is banking on the unemployment hitting home with voters.

I'm sure my message of "see, Michigan unemployment sucked just as bad four years ago as it does today" would warm Granholm's heart.

The biggest problem is that Michigan will never be informed of all these manipulations of numbers. I wonder why Granholm doesn't attack these numbers directly. Put out an ad on that. Bring it up in a debate or something. I think she's going to win anyway, but if she destroyed his notion that she lost Michigan all these jobs she'd win in a landslide. DeVos is banking on the unemployment hitting home with voters.

You play the game toward your strengths, not your weaknesses. Regardless of whether Michigan lost more jobs the last 4 years or the 4 prior to that, people are out of work. You don't win elections by saying "See he's wrong! I haven't made things worse, I just haven't made them significantly better." The more the focus is on the lack of Michigan jobs the last 4 years the worse the incumbent looks regardless of whether its the correct analysis of the situation.

For the record, I give Granholm a 'bye' because she inherited a horrible budget mess and managed to clean it up some. Especially with term limits kicking out institutional intelligence at the state legislature, there was no way she would've been able to steer a massive restructuring of business taxes in Michigan during her first term, especially when Engler hadn't fixed it in his 2nd/3rd terms. Heck, as it is, the state congresscritters couldn't even get that minimum wage bump into law without goofing up important details.

Speaking of which, I wish there were more people paying attention to those state races. Real winning candidates abound, like Brian Seiferlein, convicted of violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act, trying to buy his way into a state senate seat. Or Bert Johnson, the guy convicted of armed robbery running unopposed to be a state rep.

Hell, I just want more critical thinking in general, which is why I started this thread in the first place.

Back to jobs... some key points are:

Counting jobs is easy. There's a paper trail called money, and most people work for money as opposed to working for some abstract ideal.

Counting the # of people working those jobs is slightly less easy. Moonlighting folks may not want their 2nd job to be obvious. Don't assume a 1:1 ratio.

Counting what's seasonal gets interesting. How many people get hired for seasonal work, then go on to full time?

Counting the population gets much harder. There's immigration, fluctuations for universities, etc. No one's checking in at the state border.

Counting the % of the population who actually -wants- to work is harder still.

Even a hundred thousand jobs + or - over many years isn't all that significant at a statewide level, but it's a big sounding number to be sure.

All these numbers are being manipulated to tell a story that may or may not be true. Most people don't care enough to look when information is at their fingertips.

Few people really fear that they can't get a job at a McDonald's or Wal-Mart type of place. The fear is that they take a pay cut and quality of life cut by taking such jobs. Focusing on aggregate job #s ignores the real issue.

Shit, now I have to get back to work for a living... later...

Here's some interesting tables on how the Big Three decline factors into job losses here:

http://www.michiganprospect.org/files/michigan_employment_trends_eckstein_103106.doc

In the spirit of lies, damn lies, and statistics, note the graphs here suffer from fucking with the scales and using ratios to present what is potentially a skewed message. The most interesting statistic to me? The amount of cars not made in North America and sold here has doubled between 1999 and 2005, from 10% of sales to 20% of sales. Anyone who thinks we win fighting against Indiana and Mexico isn't reading the writing on the wall.