Michigan has a two-tier labor market

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 expanding and contracting economies, Michigan has two labor markets: one tier of occupations that do […]

Oracle bringing 8,500 high-wage jobs to Nashville

Last month Oracle announced they are bringing 8,500 jobs at an average salary of $110,000 to central city Nashville. The company will invest $1.2 billion to build out its new campus, including $175 million for public infrastructure. The city, in its statement about the Oracle investment, writes: “We are thrilled that Oracle is ready to […]

Turning a K-shaped economy into an economy that benefits all

K-shaped economy is how many describe our economy since the pandemic. And most expect the recovery to be K-shaped as well. The reality is that the Michigan economy was K-shaped pre-pandemic. With those at the top doing well, but far too many households struggling in the strong 2019 Michigan economy. As we explored in our […]

The 2019 Michigan economy was not one of our best ever

The Michigan Association of United Ways recently reported that in Michigan’s strong pre-pandemic 2019 economy 38 percent of Michigan households were unable to pay for basic necessities. So in what many called the best U.S. and Michigan economy ever, nearly four in ten Michigan households (1.5 million) did not earn enough to pay for housing, […]

Our community college completion challenge

A year ago I wrote about the year two results from the MDRC evaluation of the Detroit Promise Plus program. This post is largely a rerun of that post with data updated for year three of the program. The bottom line unfortunately remains the same: we have an ongoing community college completion challenge. The headline […]

These are Michigan’s middle-paid occupations

In recent posts we have been exploring payroll jobs wages by occupation and education. Dividing the labor market into occupations with median wages below the national median of $39,810, occupations we call middle-paid occupations with median wages between the national median and the 75 percentile of $64,230, and occupations with median wages at or above […]

These are Michigan’s high-paid occupations

In recent posts we have been exploring payroll jobs wages by occupation and education. Dividing the labor market into occupations with median wages below the national median of $39,810, occupations with median wages between the national median and the 75 percentile of $64,230, and what we call high-paid occupations with median wages at or above […]

Whitmer’s rising household income for all agenda

Governor Whitmer’s new economic policy agenda states: The construction of this agenda has, as a guiding principle, the idea that a primary goal of state economic policy should be rising household incomes for all Michiganders, especially those who are struggling. This is a huge step forward in insuring that we have an economy that as […]

Blue collar occupations don’t dominate good-paying jobs

Conventional wisdom has it that there are two dominant paths to good-paying jobs and careers: STEM occupations and the skilled trades. In our last post we looked at STEM occupations including those classified as a professional trade. In this post we will focus on the proportion of good-paying Michigan jobs that are blue collar occupations, […]

STEM occupations don’t dominate good-paying jobs

Conventional wisdom has it that there are two dominant paths to good-paying jobs and careers: STEM occupations and the skilled trades. In this post I want to focus on the proportion of good-paying Michigan jobs that are in STEM. (STEM, as you know, is shorthand for science, technology, engineering and math.) In our next post […]