Section » Michigan Talent
The reality of factory work in America
Two terrific articles describe the present and future of factory work in America. The first from the New York Times on Apple’s production system. The second a more comprehensive look at American manufacturing from the Atlantic. Both have the same bottom line: employment in American factories is not now or in the future a major source of job growth in America and the low skill factory work that was the backbone of the American middle class last century that remains here will pay less than in the past. The reason: not politics or policy, but globalization and technology.
At the core of Michigan Future’s work, from our founding twenty years ago, has been the conviction that globalization and technology are mega forces that are continuously reshaping the economy. That by orders of magnitude they are more powerful than politics or public policy. And that the places that will do the best economically are those that align with – rather than resist – what now is described as a flattening world.
In no sector of the economy is that more true than manufacturing. Globalization, of course, means that more and more people across the planet will have the skills to compete with Americans for work. And technology increasingly invents new machines that also compete with Americans for work. Not to mention creating new industries that make obsolete old industries. The two articles do a terrific job of describing how those mega forces are reshaping what factory work can be done in America competitively and for that which remains how it will be structured with fewer workers and more machines.
As the Atlantic article describes the basic facts are:
We do still make things here, even though many people don’t believe me when I tell them that. Depending on which stats you believe, the United States is either the No. 1 or No. 2 manufacturer in the world (China may have surpassed us in the past year or two). Whatever the country’s current rank, its manufacturing output continues to grow strongly; in the past decade alone, output from American factories, adjusted for inflation, has risen by a third. … Yet the success of American manufacturers has come at a cost. Factories have replaced millions of workers with machines. Even if you know the rough outline of this story, looking at the Bureau of Labor Statistics data is still shocking. A historical chart of U.S. manufacturing employment shows steady growth from the end of the Depression until the early 1980s, when the number of jobs drops a little. Then things stay largely flat until about 1999. After that, the numbers simply collapse. In the 10 years ending in 2009, factories shed workers so fast that they erased almost all the gains of the previous 70 years; roughly one out of every three manufacturing jobs—about 6 million in total—disappeared. About as many people work in manufacturing now as did at the end of the Depression, even though the American population is more than twice as large today.
Both articles are terrific at describing the realities of global manufacturing. If you care at all about the future of factory work in America they both are must reads. Both articles explore the calculus companies go through to decide whether to make a product in American or places like Mexico and China. The Atlantic concludes the products that will continue to be manufactured here are precision products and those made in small batches. Clearly many industries – like consumer electronics – are never going to make their products in American again.
The Atlantic article adds a description of the calculus that goes into deciding when to invest in machines to replace American workers. And makes clear that there are machines today that can do even more of the work that American factory workers now do, but for the moment are too expensive to replace relatively low wage American factory workers. But as the price of the machines go down, more jobs will be automated.
What does all of this mean for factory floor employment in America? The Atlantic article sought answers in a fuel injector plant in South Carolina. As they explain there are two types of factory workers there. Quoting the plant manager: “Unskilled worker,” he narrates, “can train in a short amount of time. The machine controls the quality of the part. “High-skill worker,” on the other hand, “can set up machines and make a variety of small adjustments; they use their judgment to assure product quality.”
The unskilled workers in the plant make $13 an hour. Their job is to work with “machines that can work in only one way and require little judgment from the operator. … Computers eliminate the need for human discretion; the person is there only to place the parts and push a button.” These jobs are still in America as the article describes for two reasons: “First, when it comes to making fuel injectors, the company saves money and minimizes product damage by having both the precision and non-precision work done in the same place. Even if Mexican or Chinese workers could do Maddie’s (a low skilled factory worker) job more cheaply, shipping fragile, half-finished parts to another country for processing would make no sense. Second, Maddie is cheaper than a machine.”
The skilled worker’s job is much different. The article describes a worker that went through two years of education at a community college that included learning algebra, trigonmetry, calculus and computer programming. That prepared him for a job that pays around $19 an hour (50% more than the unskilled workers) and involves overseeing “several machines, performing on-the-spot quality checks and making appropriate adjustments as needed.”
The inescapable conclusion from these articles is that the number of low skilled factory workers in America is going to continue to decline. And what remains will pay around than the $13 an hour that Maddie earns or lower. At the same time there is a need for more high skilled factory workers. Products will still be made here in factories which are increasingly machine driven and staffed by far fewer and higher skilled workers who will make decent incomes.
America faces the twin challenges of too many workers with the skills to do low skilled factory work and too few workers with the skills to do high skilled factory work. Our ability to tackle either challenge is hindered greatly by an unwillingness to accept these realities. Rather we continue to search for how we can recreate the high paid, low skilled, mass employment factory-based economy of the past. Not possible! Factory work in America is going the way of American agriculture: highly productive, with few, mainly higher skilled, workers.
Quick updates
Some interesting press coverage of topics I have written about recently. Worth reading.
On the topic of welcoming to all (see my pledge of allegiance post) the Governor’s signing of the domestic partner benefit ban was a big step backwards. Two columns – one by Brian Dickerson in the Free Press and other by Tommy Allen for Mlive – capture how wrong and harmful that decision was. The Dickerson column says it all in its title: The good governor sides with the bigots. As does the title of the Allen column: Domestic partner benefit ban: Can Michigan experience economic recovery when we enshrine discrimination?
On places doing well economically despite supposedly high (to listen to the small government ideologues crushing) business costs check out a fascinating account in Bloomberg Business Week on Silicon Valley and an Economist article on New York City. These are two places that the right always pontificates about are in a state of permanent decline. As companies and people supposedly flee high tax/big government/high costs places. Wrong! Here is what Business Week says about Silicon Valley:
It was never clearer than in 2011 that Silicon Valley exists in an alternate reality—a bubble of prosperity. Restaurants are booked, freeways are packed, and companies are flush with cash. The prosperity bubble isn’t just a state of mind: Times are as good as they’ve been in recent memory. The region gets 40 percent of the country’s venture capital haul, up from 31 percent a decade ago, according to the National Venture Capital Assn. And the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics recently reported that growth of the area’s job market led the nation, jumping 3.2 percent, triple the national rate.
Some of that job growth is auto related. Ford just announced that they will be joining many auto companies in Silicon Valley. Why? Concentrated talent.
And then there is New York City (check out my recent posts here and here) which as the Economists writes is doing well and is positioning itself to do even better in the future with their investment in the new Cornell/Technion campus. As they write:
Some $1.2 billion was invested by venture-capital firms in New York in 2010. The Big Apple even overtook Massachusetts in venture-capital funding for internet and tech start-ups, making it second only to Silicon Valley. And in the third quarter of last year, it surpassed it in venture capital in all categories. Between 2005 and 2010 employment in New York’s high-tech sector grew by nearly 30%. Google alone has about 1,200 engineers in the city.
Finally, as you know a central conclusion of ours from the years of research we have done on the characteristic of the most prosperous places around the country is that, with the exception of a few energy production states, the states that do well are anchored by a vibrant central city. As our Governor says Michigan can not succeed if the city of Detroit isn’t succeeding.
Dome Magazine published a terrific series of four columns by Craig Ruff on the importance of cities to Michgian’ success. You can find the first here. Definitely worth checking out all four. Ruff sums up how important this is to Michigan’s success this way: “Does Michigan need cities? Unequivocally, I say “yes.” Getting there is a whole ’nother kettle of fish. Why we, virtually alone and voluntarily, turned vibrant cities into detritus defines us and, very sadly, forecasts our future.”
Let the marketplace set higher education prices
Economics 101: The marketplace sets prices that balance the interests of those buying and selling a product; price controls don’t work; consumers are rational. Seems like our politicians and the media either didn’t take or forgot Economics 101 when it comes to public higher education.
State policy makers have moved from a bad idea, jawboning Michigan public universities to hold down tuition, to an even worse setting tuition caps and the media is constantly writing that Michigan parents and students are being screwed by too-high tuition at Michigan’s public universities. (Neither policy makers nor the media seem to care about even higher tuition and tuition increases at our private universities.)
For those interested in why college costs for in-state students at Michigan’s public universities is so high read the recent Bridge feature story. The primary reason – as they document – is state budget cuts to higher education over the past decade. Leaving Michigan in the bottom five in terms of state support per student.
What I want to focus on in this post is the issue of whether higher education – even with seemingly high tuition – is worth the costs or not and who should determine that value proposition: customers or government. The Bridge article features two cousins, one at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor paying $16,888 per year and the other at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill paying $8,423. They describe the difference as a college user tax paid by Michigan families.
The assumption is that UM and UNC provide basically the same education. Back to Economics 101: the marketplace is telling us something very different. Non-resident tuition and fees (Bridge uses more than tuition and fees in their cost calculations) at UM Ann Arbor for incoming freshmen is $18,794 per semester, at UNC Chapel Hill it is $13,416. These prices are set by supply and demand based on paying customers – from anywhere on the planet – determination of what they get for their money from the two universities. Customers are telling us that UM Ann Arbor is worth a more than $5,000 (30%) per semester premium in price over UNC Chapel Hill.
Incoming in-state freshmen at UM Ann Arbor pay $6,220. A more than $12,500 (more than 65%) discount from the market price that students and parents from across the globe are standing in line to pay. Remember that UM Ann Arbor is turning away thousands each year who are willing to pay full price. For any other consumer purchase this would be considered a deal of the century price, not a tax! (Think buying a $50,000 luxury car at $17,500. Good deal or tax?)
And not only do in-state students get a huge discount from market prices they also are getting a terrific investment that pays high returns for a career (something like 40 years). As a recent Brookings study documents higher education is a far better investment than stocks, bonds or owning a home. Its not even close. As I wrote in a previous post, this is even true if one has to take out substantial college loans:
… taking out loans for college is a good investment. And for those who are dedicated to getting a college degree is a far better option than not going to college because they cannot afford the tuition. Somehow as a society we have decided that college loans are a burden but taking out a loan to buy a home is a good investment. We urge new college graduates to buy a home at the same time that we bemoan the so called crushing burden of college loans. … Now there is evidence (the Brookings study) that not only is that not true, but that college is a better investment than stocks and bonds as well.
Should Michigan policymakers increase state aid to higher education and therefore increase the in-state discount? Of course. We strongly believe the state should reverse the more than a decade of disinvestment in our terrific public higher education system. We have argued for years these cuts are stupid. How we could have fallen to the bottom five is mind boggling. College attainment is not only the single best predictor of individuals economic well being but also of state prosperity. It certainly is one of the keys to returning Michigan to prosperity.
But a lower in-state discount (its around 75% at UNC Chapel Hill) is not a tax. And certainly not a justification for price controls. Back to Economics 101. Price controls – tuition caps – long term will lead to one of two results, both harmful. For those institutions with more demand than supply, they will take more students from outside of Michigan. For those who do not have waiting lists of students willing to pay market rates, they will reduce quality.
The basic lesson we need to learn is that in a highly competitive market place like higher education – there are thousands of choices at all price points and quality varieties – prices are set most efficiently by customers, not government. Customers are far better at figuring out what price is a good value and what isn’t than government.
Lessons to learn: Mayor Bloomberg
Happy New Year!
I want to start the year by writing about those who provide lessons and/or ideas on the agenda that can allow us to move towards Governor Snyder’s goal of a Michigan 3.0. Seems like I spend a lot of time in these posts criticizing what Michigan is doing. Rather than complaining, I want to focus on what a positive agenda would look like. The bottom line: if others are doing it, so can we. We will have to choose a new course of action, but the choice is ours alone.
The elected official in America today who is most aggressively pursuing positioning his community for a 3.0/knowledge-driven economy is New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He inherited a city already with many assets for a 3.0 economy: an entrepreneurial culture, a city that is welcoming to all as well as great public services and amenities that make NYC a place where mobile talent wants to live and work. To his credit Mayor Bloomberg is pushing to enhance those assets.
Unlike many, when the economy collapse at the onset of the Great Recession he raised taxes (yes raised, not cut taxes) to make sure that the city could maintain quality basic services and amenities. He has been an innovator in improving schools, a national voice for pro-immigration policies and an investor in infrastructure, parks and the arts all of which enhance NYC as place that can compete globally for talent.
But maybe his biggest and most impactful action has been to sponsor a competition to lure a brand new engineering and technology higher education campus to the city. Talk about outside the box and making a big bet! A mayor getting involved in funding higher education. But Bloomberg understands that higher education – particularly research universities – are a critical economic driver in a knowledge-driven economy. Quite simply you want to be the place where new knowledge is being created and new talent is being prepared. The city offered as an incentive land as well as $100 million in infrastructure improvements.
The New York Times reports that Cornell University in partnership with Technion-Israel Institute of Technology won the competition over such prestigious competitors as Stanford, Columbia and Carnegie Mellon. According to the Times the plan calls for about 280 faculty members and 2,500 students in master’s and doctoral programs. The schools have also committed to training at least 200 teachers each year in science education, and to help teach at least 10,000 students, from kindergarten through 12th grade, each year. The initiative includes a $150 million venture capital fund for start-up companies that agree to remain in New York for three years, as well as math and science education support for 10,000 city children. They estimated that building the campus would create 20,000 construction jobs, and that it would spin off 600 new businesses over the next generation, creating 30,000 more jobs and as much as $1.4 billion in tax revenue.
Contrast that to Michigan’s approach to higher education the last decade. Cutting spending by nearly a third, imposing price controls and increasingly micro-managing from Lansing how universities operate. I’m sure there wasn’t anything in the NYC competition that asked universities about whether they offer domestic partner benefits, or placed conditions/restrictions on stem cell research, or affirmative action restrictions or whether or not they have tenured professors who are not teaching full time or placed limits on the tuition they charge. All misguided obsessions here. Ask yourself: “who is positioning themselves better for Governor Snyder’s 3.0 New York City or Michigan?”
This competition is not just about how a state or city value higher education – as a powerful asset for economic growth or wasteful spending institutions that need to be reined in. It is also about whether there are essential assets that matter to economic growth that communities need to invest in whether times are tough or not to be globally competitive. Mayor Bloomberg’s higher education play is entirely consistent with Denver in the 80s, when its economy collapsed, deciding that to be globally competitive they needed a world class airport and Portland in the 70s and Salt Lake City in the 90s deciding that to be competitive they needed rail transit or California in the 50s committing themselves to building a comprehensive, world class higher education system. The list goes on and on. The lesson is clear: public investments in strategic assets are essential to globally competitive states and regions.
Once again contrast that list of impactful public investments to what is happening here. Where we are letting our roads crumble, walking away from the Woodward light rail even with private investors putting $100 million on the table, weakening what was once one of the great higher education systems on the planet, etc. Once again, ask yourself “who is positioning themselves best to win in a flattening world, those who make big strategic public investments or those – like us – who don’t?”
Dumb on transit again
It goes from bad to worse when it comes to transit in metro Detroit. First the city and state walking away from the Woodward light rail, now the city of Troy refusing to take federal funds for a transit center. What makes Troy worse is that the vote is only partially about not valuing transit, it also is about keep “them” out.
In each case the cancelled projects were strongly supported by the business community. They understand – as apparently our elected officials don’t – that transit is an economic growth asset. This is becoming a pattern that goes far beyond transit. Business leaders are far ahead of state and local officials when it comes to what matters in a knowledge-driven economy. As I have written previously businesses understand that welcoming to all is an economic imperative in a world where talent – which comes in all of human varieties – is the asset that is the most important to economic success. On gays, immigrants and affirmative action, as well as the importance of quality of place public investments like transit, they are far ahead of policy makers.
As readers of these posts know I often ask “what planet are they living on?” for folks who advocate positions that are so clearly out of line with what is going on in the real world. It may be that the more appropriate question is “what century are they living in?”
In an insightful, must-read Free Press column entitled “In Troy, an all-too-familiar fear of the other”, Brian Dickerson makes this case as well as I have read anywhere. Dickerson writes:
To be a hick in 2011, then, is to be in a state of denial — which is why “hicks” is precisely the right word to describe Troy Mayor Janice Daniels and the like-minded elected city leaders who’ve sent Troy reeling backward in time, grasping for a past that is not so much racist or unsophisticated as it is, well, past. … Daniels & Co. invoked a series of spurious arguments to defend their decision, including the claim that they were striking a blow against federal spending. … But their real motive was transparent: the fear that outsiders currently disinclined to visit Troy may do so if enticed by a modern train station and convenient parking, at an incalculable cost to Troy taxpayers and their way of life. To dismiss this sort of thinking as bigotry is almost beside the point; it’s simply bad policy, predicated on a world that no longer exists. There may have been a time when communities could compete effectively for residents and employers by making themselves less accessible to surrounding municipalities, but that time is a distant memory. The era when the absence of public transit was a boon to property values may never have existed at all.
Dickerson quotes a lobbyist for Magna International, a huge multi-national auto supplier who is a big employer in Troy, as saying that he would encourage the company to reduce its footprint in Troy and look elsewhere for expansion opportunity. So much for the claim from policy makers that we need to be more business friendly and jobs are priority 1!
Andrew Basile Jr., an owner of the Young, Basile law firm in Troy, in a letter to the Troy Chamber – a strong supporter of the transit center – forcefully makes the case that these kind of actions are anti-economic growth. Basile wrote:
… I believe her (Mayor Daniels) whole “debt” rationale is disingenuous. If it were federal money for a hospital or a highway overpass, I cannot imagine her turning it away. This may be therefore really an attempt to thwart transit for motives that, in my opinion, are closed-minded. … One might be ready to overlook one or two bad decisions by the mayor were they not coming on the heels of her disgraceful handling of the controversy surrounding her Facebook post on gay marriage. From her post itself through her response to the public outcry, she seems wholly unconcerned with the economic wellbeing of Troy, at least insofar as it may impinge on her freedom to publicly display herself as a classless, tasteless bigot. It’s bad for business for Troy to have a mayor who harbors (much less publicly voices) anti-gay perspectives. She might as well have taken out a full page ad in the Detroit News admonishing corporations not to locate in Troy. That she does not appear to understand this is both telling and troubling.
Michigan policy makers need to learn quick what Michigan employers know: being welcoming to all and making public investments that create places where talent wants to live and work are economic growth imperatives.
Snyder on talent
Governor Snyder’s special message on talent is quite remarkable. The fact that there was a special message – reserved for only the state’s top priorities – on talent is noteworthy in and of itself. Believe me talent never before has received this kind of high profile attention by a Michigan governor.
Highlights of the message include a continuation of the Governor’s insistence that Michigan be friendly to immigrants including a call for Congress to take action to make it far easier for foreign born college graduates to stay and work in the U.S. And a recognition that quality of place is an essential ingredient to concentrating talent here. That creating places where talent wants to live matters along with preparing talent.
But what makes the message extraordinary and possibly transformational is that the Governor writes: In the 20th century, the most valuable assets to job creators were financial and material capital. In a changing global economy, that is no longer the case. Today, talent has surpassed other resources as the driver of economic growth. Talk about a complete break with the past!
For decades state and local economic development has been based on a belief that providing incentives to financial and material capital is how you grew the economy. Hardly anyone debated whether there were any other options. In this message Governor Snyder asserts that not only is there another option, but that talent is now the preeminent driver of economic growth. This means that actions that concentrate human capital should be economic development priority #1. Preparing (the subject of most of the message’s proposals), retaining and attracting talent are the actions that matter most to whether Michigan has a strong, prosperous economy in the future.
Evidence that as the Governor writes today talent has surpassed other resources as the driver of economic growth comes from the strong and growing alignment of college attainment and state per capita income. Of the top 15 states in the proportion of adults with a four-year degree or more, 13 are also in the top 15 in per capita income. Michigan’s fundamental problem is that we are now 36th in college attainment. Unless we fix that we are going to be one of the country’s poorest states.
Dome Magazine published a column I wrote comparing the Indiana and Minnesota economies. Indiana is a state that is viewed as offering the most business friendly environment in the Great Lakes and because of that has been held out for decades as a state Michigan should model. In the Governor’s words it has pursued a strategy of being friendly to financial and material capital. Minnesota on the other hand is the Great Lakes state with the highest proportion of adults with a four-year degree or more.
Indiana, in the 2011 state rankings by the well-respected conservative Tax Foundation, is the highest ranked Great Lakes state on both overall state business climate (10th) and corporate tax index (21st). Minnesota is the worst-ranked Great Lakes state by the Tax Foundation — 43rd from the top on its overall state business climate index. And its ranking of 44th on the corporate tax index is only better in the Great Lakes than Michigan’s ranking of 48th. On the other hand, Minnesota is the Great Lakes state with the highest college attainment rate, Indiana the lowest. So the two states offer a real world test of the Governor’s assertion that today talent trumps financial and material capital.
My Dome article details the economic performance of the two states on both employment and income metrics as well as both current levels and growth. The bottom line: on every metric of economic well being residents of Minnesota are doing far better than residents of Indiana. For most metrics Minnesota is not only the highest ranked in the Great Lakes but a national leader and Indiana is at the bottom in the Great Lakes and not much better nationally.
Governor Snyder is right: talent is the most important driver of economic growth. In an increasingly knowledge-based economy (the Governor’s Michigan 3.0) talent is the most valuable and scarcest asset. Increasingly employers will move to the places that provide them with the largest talent pools. Understanding that talent is the economic growth priority is a major step forward. We need now to act boldly on that understanding with a new agenda that concentrates talent in Michigan. It is what matters most to Michigan’s economic future.
Indivisible, with liberty and justice for all
All of this comes on top of actions like a previous legislature voting to make it hard for foreign born Michiganders to get a drivers license and voters approving anti affirmative action and gay marriage constitutional amendments.
How do these actions square with “One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”?
You may ask, why am I writing about this in a blog that is focused on growing the Michigan economy. Clearly this is primarily a moral issue. But it also matters a lot to the economic well being of the state as well.
As we have argued for years, culture – our attitudes and beliefs – trump policy. The most prosperous places across America have as a core characteristic a community DNA that is welcoming to all. In an economy increasingly driven by talent, to be prosperous you need to be a place where people in all human varieties want to live and work. People don’t feel welcome, they aren’t going to live here. Add to that folks who are not in the excluded groups but don’t want to live in an intolerant/unwelcoming community. When talent leaves they take the future of Michigan’s economy with them.
Yes, lets make sure our kids learn the ideals of an America that is one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. At the same time, it sure seems like we adults need to relearn it as well.
Schools and cities driving economic growth
In a recent New York Times column Harvard’s Edward Glaeser wrote: “In the long run, America will be richer than China only by having smarter citizens, and that requires the skills that come from schools and cities, not dispersed factories.”
Rick Haglund in an insightful Mlive column reviewing Governor Granholm’s new book makes the same point:
Her prescriptions are heavy on government partnerships with industry, and a focus on “clean energy” and advanced manufacturing. But Granholm says precious little about the areas where most of the good-paying jobs in a changing knowledge economy are being created — information, health care, education and financial services. Nor does she say much about the need for an urban strategy and boosting state financial support for higher education — two areas that are critical in attracting and retaining the young talent Michigan needs. But state government has been cutting revenue sharing to cities and university appropriations for years, a practice Gov. Rick Snyder has continued. Reversing those trends will be hard at a time when Snyder’s fellow Republicans want to abolish as much government as possible. But if Snyder fails in his pledge to make our cities more attractive and our workers smarter, he may find himself hiding behind sunglasses and a ballcap as his days as governor wind down.
Skills that come from schools and cities. Think about how different that is from the normal approach to economic development. Most policy makers and practitioners would think you are from Mars if you suggested that schools and cities are the levers that matter most for economic success. They almost exclusively focus on retaining and attracting businesses.
The evidence, in an economy being constantly transformed by globalization and technology, supports Glaeser’s central conclusion: concentrated talent is the most important ingredient driving economic growth. And where are college educated adults concentrating? Big metros anchored by vibrant central cities.
We found in our just released progress report on Michigan’s transition to a knowledge-based economy that high prosperity is occurring chiefly in those places where knowledge-based enterprises across many sectors are concentrating. They are concentrating in areas with a high proportion of adults with a bachelor’s degree or more.
In 2000, at the end of the boom years, Michigan still ranked 18th in per capita income. We were 34th in four-year degree attainment. In many ways, 2000 marked the end of an era when you could have high prosperity with low education attainment. No more! In 2009 Michigan ranked 36th in college attainment and 37th in per capita income — 13 percent below the national average, our lowest since the federal government started keeping statistics in 1929.
Our basic conclusion: what most distinguishes successful areas from Michigan is their concentrations of talent, where talent is defined as a combination of knowledge, creativity and entrepreneurship. Quite simply, in a flattening world where work can increasingly be done anyplace by anybody, the places with the greatest concentrations of talent win. States and regions without concentrations of talent will have great difficulty retaining or attracting knowledge-based enterprises, nor are they likely to be the place where new knowledge-based enterprises are created. The knowledge-based economy is now the path to prosperity for Michigan.
Michigan has lagged in its support of the assets necessary to develop the knowledge-based economy at the needed scale. The assets that matter most: a quality and agile higher education system and big metropolitan areas, anchored by vibrant central cites, where talent want to live and work. These are two areas the state has been disinvesting in this decade. Not smart!
• Copyright 2009 • Twitter: #michiganfuture