What’s Holding Michigan’s Economy Back: Jonathan Williams on MIRS News
What will it take to make Michigan competitive again?
ALEC President and Chief Economist Jonathan Williams recently joined the MIRS News podcast to discuss Michigan’s economic outlook and ways to improve its economic competitiveness.
The conversation dove right into Michigan’s economic challenges, referencing a recent report highlighting the state’s struggles with job competitiveness, noting that 62% of Michigan jobs were low income. Williams responded to this by noting Michigan’s recent decline in economic outlook and the need for the state to improve its incentives for businesses to create high-wage jobs.
“The bottom line is that Michigan needs to get better and improve, and they need to look at things like our Rich States, Poor States report that shows Michigan was the state that unfortunately fell the most in terms of economic outlook recently,” he explained. “It comes to job opportunities and the job wage level that are talked about in that report and what are the market incentives for an employer to create a high wage job in Michigan versus the other 49 states.”
Shriber then focused on how Michigan’s ranking compared to the top-ranked states in the “Rich States, Poor States” report, with Utah consistently ranked first and North Carolina showing significant improvement. Williams praised both states for their successes and emphasized the broader implications of these policies, highlighting the importance of keeping the cost of hiring low to attract high-paying jobs.
“The key to their success is back to this kind of economics 101, as you balance spending decisions and priorities with the available revenue that you have,” he noted. “They keep that generally more frugal when it comes to how government goes about spending its dollars, that is the thing that sometimes gets lost in the debate.”
Williams also pointed out how these efforts could be applied to Michigan as a starting point for improving its future rankings.
“It’s a great way to help turn Michigan and other states around, to reduce and eliminate income taxes, if you can do it, but the way to do that is you have to keep a really good handle on the growth of spending and keep spending in check.”
The discussion then turned to the issues of education freedom and energy prices and how states such as Michigan can address them in an impactful way. Williams highlighted, for education, the importance of customizing it to meet individual student needs, including micro-schooling and other innovative approaches.
“At the end of the day, the heart of it for so many of the policymakers that have moved in this direction in other states is, how do we empower parents to be more involved in their kids’ education, broadly, like they were forced to be during the pandemic.”
In regard to energy prices, he emphasized the need for continued efforts in American energy independence.
“Continuing to look for American energy independence opportunities to ensure that we’re not overly dependent on these risky sources of energy going forward has been a top priority,” Williams said. “We’ve made huge strides as a country in recent years, and we need to continue that, and states need to do what they can to assist in this national effort.”
The conversation concluded with Shriber asking about the future of Michigan’s economic competitiveness and whether the state will be able to mount an economic comeback. Williams expressed optimism about Michigan’s ability to turn around its economic fortunes, drawing on past successes.
“Thinking about ways to turn Michigan around, I think it’s going to be just so important going forward and we’ve done it before,” he emphasized. “I’m an eternal optimist, and I think we have the leaders thinking through what it will take to make Michigan more competitive again.”