Unemployment’s Role in Michigan
Unemployment rates vary from state to state throughout the nation. There are many reasons for unemployment in Michigan, from poverty and the decline of the automobile industry. Poverty in Michigan is a potential outcome of unemployment and industrial change in the state is a potential cause of it.
When looking at the data by year, there was a pattern of increasing and decreasing. Right now, Michigan is at its lowest unemployment rate. Looking at these numbers is essential because jobs are important.
When comparing the unemployment rate to the poverty rate in Michigan, they increase and decrease around the same time. As the unemployment rate began to drop around 2010, the poverty rate began to decrease as well in 2011. Though the poverty rate shows a very slow decrease, it seems to be going with the unemployment rate.
Since the two factors are decreasing together, why is it that one is at its lowest while the other is only slowly going down? This shows that there are other factors that impact the unemployment rate in Michigan.
According to The Employment Law Handbook website, the minimum wage in Michigan will go from $9.25 to $9.45 on April 1st, 2019. Raising the minimum wage annually has been proven that it does not increase the unemployment rate, according to Business for a Fair Minimum Wage. This means that the unemployment rate is not necessarily impacted by the changes made to minimum wage in the state of Michigan.
Minimum wage in Michigan is projected to go from its pay, $9.25, to $12.05 by January 2030. This increase is at about 23%.
When it comes to the state of Michigan, a big impact in the unemployment rate is the decline of the auto industry. Due to the decline, new jobs have been projected to rise from 2016 to 2026. Personal care aide jobs alone show over 777,000 more jobs that are up and coming. The amount of job additions in 2019 are up to 1.7 million. According to Research Seminar in Quantitative Economics, Michigan has entered its ninth year of recovering economically.
Since the last U.S. recession, the unemployment rate decreased almost 9% bringing it down to one of its lowest points.
The number of people that are unemployed in the state of Michigan peaked in June of 2009, according to The Department of Numbers. During that time, over 700,000 people declared unemployment. The percentage rate was up at 14.6% and dropped over 10 percentage points. The national unemployment rate stands at 3.8% as of February 2019, and it remains at 4.1% for Michigan only.
Unemployment’s role in Michigan has made a big change since the year 2000 alone. With many new jobs projected to be opening up in the coming years, the job losses due to the change in the auto industry can be saved. At this pace, poverty in Michigan will continue to go down, slowly, as the rate of unemployment continues at one of its lowest figures.
