Michigan's Middle Class Stumbling Despite Economic Recovery

[Purveyor]

James Jacobs hands a guest to his Macomb Community College office his latest economic forecast, a puzzling six-page mix of good news and bad news.

The number of jobs in Macomb, the state's third-most populous county, are increasing. New home construction is rising, as is industrial expansion. But more residents are also going to food pantries and receiving federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Median household income has fallen sharply.

Jacobs, a well-known economist in addition to being a community college president, doesn't need bar charts and spreadsheets to know that something has happened to Michigan's middle class. There are now two food banks on campus. The parking lots aren't as full as they used to be because thousands of students, most with families and full-time jobs, arrive by bus because fewer now own cars.

This suburban campus and the sprawling county it serves are ground zero for Michigan's middle-class malaise. The stock market is up. Unemployment is down. Gov. Rick Snyder lauds the "Michigan Comeback." Yet today's workers are part of the first generation in Michigan history who, taken as a whole, are not better off than their parents.

When adjusted for inflation, Michigan's median household income is lower today than in 1969, when Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon and Richard Nixon was sworn in as president.

MORE...

http://www.mlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/08/michigans_stumbling_middle_cla.html

[Octafish]

1. Snyder the Appointer

The people who now own Detroit love him. The rest of us, not so much.


https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/04/01/mora-a01.html?view=article_mobile

[romanic]

2. I can see if first hand.

I work in Macomb Co. (Shelby to be specific) and the so-called recovery in MI is superficial. Half-empty strip malls (yet more are being built), many underwater homes (yet more are being built), more discount/dollar stores (again more being built), etc etc. What's being built cannot replace what was here in the first place - high paying jobs, reasonable homes, and local businesses that was supported by the car industry. What we have here now in MI for most middle-class people are slave-wage jobs that cannot sustain all of this superficial growth in our sprawling areas. I wouldn't be surprised to see all these mcMansions popping up either turn into low-income ghettos or urban prairies because our city governments are too stupid to see the problem that plauges most of our populace. *sighs*