Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Unemployment climbs again in Michigan

The unemployment rate in Michigan is now 7.7%, a full 3 points above the national average. If that news is not bad enough, it appears that the decline in employment is accelerating. MIRS reports that the 22,000 jobs lost in October was the largest month-over-month loss this year.

And it isn't just manufacturing jobs, either. There was a loss of 8,000 mfg. jobs, but also 5,000 in the hospitality and leisure sector. No doubt, much of that is seasonal, but no matter how you look at it, the news is not encouraging.

Meanwhile, the tax on services issue has not been resolved and the Governor is now holding the process "hostage" until she gets guarantees of $40 million in new revenues to cover the "loss" of the service tax which would occur during the period from December 1 to December 20.

The legislature did not meet this week. Session was scheduled for Tuesday, but canceled the night before. The next scheduled day for session is Tuesday before Thanksgiving. It will be interesting to see if the House Dems have come up with a plan to fix this issue.

The only thing job providers dislike more than poor tax policy is uncertainty. The clock is ticking and 60,000 businesses don't know what is expected of them come December 1st. We need some leadership...

3 comments:

wolflady48884 said...

Unemployment may be listed as 7.75 but people don't understand this only reflects open UE cases not the ones who have run out their UE benefits and are still unemployed due to the economy. In my county I would venture to say the actual UE rate is very close to 20% and perhaps higher.

Jenny hasn't figured out that you can't collect income tax from people who aren't working and you sure aren't going to get sales taxes out of these people as they have no money to spend on goods or services.

But she is still going to tax us into prosperity. Just wait and see we will all be blown away soon.

I just wonder when the Chinese are going to come in and take over our state. A banker from our area has said this is a very distinct possibility due to the debt owed to China at this point. We are fertile ground for manufacturing and they are looking at us.

Anonymous said...

After the 2008 budget had been settledand taxes had been raised, Jenny said now we can get on with the business of creating jobs in Michigan. It is obvious with the latest figures that her policies of creating jobs just don't work. In the democrat mind, taxes and job creation are two separate and disconnected entities. They don't understand that taxes are dynamic and if we have more money in our pockets to spend, government revenues increase. That's why they continue to look for an equal replacement to the service tax. Until we have a leadership that understands the relationship between taxes, jobs, and revenue, we will continue on the downward path we have been on since Jenny took office.

Anonymous said...

After the 2008 budget was passed, the Governor commented that now we can get on with the business of creating jobs. In the democrat mind, tax policy and job creation are two distinct and unrelated issues. Until we have leadership that understands the relationship between tax policy and economic development, Michigan will continue to suffer.