Jennifer Granholm succeeds Engler as Governor, and has so far proceeded to steadily reduce Michigan's workforce to a current (as of May) level of 4,848,828 and steadily raise unemployment to . . . well . . . that ugly looking number above.

And let's keep in mind what that number doesn't include:

• Illegal immigrants - because you have to be here legally to count as a statistic for much of anything

• Families who've left this state while they can - current estimates have that rate at one family every 12 minutes

• People who've just given up and gone onto the state's welfare rolls

• Workers who are quite content with a part-time (< 35 hrs/wk) job - because only full-time employment counts as being "employed" in this metric