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Tag: unemployment rate

When will Lansing get around to addressing our challenges?

By dennislennox, Section News
Posted on Fri Jul 24, 2009 at 07:25:46 AM EST
Tags: unemployment rate, michigan, lansing, dennis lennox (all tags)

Cross-posted at Dennis Lennox for State House

While the the rest of the country is beginning to experience what we have went through for the last seven years, Michigan's economy continues to worsen.

According to Gongwer News, only two of Michigan's 83 counties have unemployment rates less than 10 percent. If that wasn't bad enough, 36 counties had unemployment rates over 15.2 percent with Baraga County at a shocking 26.4 percent.

Northern Michigan's unemployment rates have decreased slightly due to seasonal employment, though the situation is still troubling because too many children grow up watching their parents work only four or five months a year and collect public assistance for the rest of the year. This is unacceptable -- it institutionalizes a mindset that welfare is acceptable and does little to improve the next generation's future.

Lansing has to stop looking at our challenges from a Republican or Democrat mindset. It's time to come together. Our great state deserves better.

Comments >>

10.6 percent and rising, but hope on the horizon?

By Nick, Section News
Posted on Thu Jan 22, 2009 at 06:59:00 AM EST
Tags: Cox, Ficano, budget, unemployment rate, corrections, 2010, candidate (all tags)

If the question is about the immediate horizon, the answer is almost certainly no. Late yesterday we learned that Michigan's nation's-worst unemployment rate had skyrocketed a full percentage point from 9.6 to 10.6 percent. Rich Haglund at Booth Newspapers reports that the number is the highest it has been since September of 1985 as "...the state was then emerging from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression."

For the record, because I know you're curious, NO, 1985 was neither John Engler, George W. Bush or Dick DeVos's fault. Engler was still years away from being elected Governor, Bush was just the Vice President's kid and DeVos was a young entrepreneur in the process of becoming one of the great job makers the state of Michigan has known. None of them, though, were running the show in Lansing or Washington, DC.

Blanchard was the Democrat at the helm in the Capital City and Ronald Reagan had the national economy kicking into gear as it recovered from stagflation and the devastating recession of 1982.

This year Michigan remains the only state with double-digit unemployment and the freefall continues. But I mentioned hope. Haglund continues:

Economists expect the state and national unemployment rates to rise this year because consumers are spending less in a deepening recession.
Mackinac Center senior economist David Littmann said he expects unemployment to hit 12 percent by July.
"There's really no better time for government to reduce the tax and regulatory burdens on the private sector and spark the long-awaited turnaround in Michigan's economy," Littmann said.

To that end, here comes the calvary. Maybe.

Read on...

(2 comments, 836 words in story) Full Story