LANSING – Changing the cultural identity of Michigan to spur economic development will prove to be one of the hardest tasks but does not have to be one of the most expensive, the authors of a report saying economic development in the state will depend on promoting high education jobs.
That does not mean the state will not have to spend money, especially on education, Lou Glazer and Donald Grimes of Michigan Future told a group at the Lansing Regional Chamber of Commerce.
In fact, Glazer, criticizing the state government’s inability to put more money into higher education, said it was ironic that during the 20th Century when the economy grew on the basis of low-skills manufacturing and higher education wasn’t needed that the state invested so much in its university system.
Now in the 21st Century when good educations are critical to economic development the state “is disinvesting in higher education,” Glazer said.
The two men were bringing the results of the organization’s latest study – which showed that jobs requiring higher education and skills were growing in the nation while jobs requiring low skills were declining – to several discussions across the state.
The report and its findings repeat arguments the group and others have made for some time: that to prosper the state must promote education more, especially higher education, but that it also must promote metro areas that will attract better educated residents, especially younger residents.
The collapse of low-skills jobs in the national and state economy can be seen in statistics the two showed that in 2000 the state ranked 16th in the nation in per capita income and that had fallen to 33rd by 2007. The state ranked 34th among all states both years in terms of the percentage of those with four-year college degrees.
The percentage of jobs needing higher education did drop in the state in 2007, by 1 percent, which Glazer attributed largely to the loss of higher-level automotive jobs. But jobs that require low skills fell by nearly 11 percent during the same year.
Low skills jobs also averaged $36,200 in wages while higher skills jobs earned nearly $53,400 that year they said.
Critical to the state improving its economy is changing its cultural attitude, the two men said. Part of that is dropping the attitude too many people still have that an individual can make a good living without getting advanced training, they said.
More important, said Grimes, “people have to take initiative. You can’t show up and wait for people to tell you what to do. Nobody owes you anything. When we adapt to this as a state, we’re good.”
Too often people in Michigan view change as a threat. “When we view it as an opportunity, we’ve won,” Grimes said.
Communities and states have been able to turn their communities around after watching their long-time economies collapse, Glazer said. For example, in Denver, where the economy fell in the 1980s with a collapse of energy prices, government and business leaders backed the construction of a new airport, redeveloped its downtown and passed five-county regional taxes for arts and regional transportation.
In Pittsburgh, after officials accepted the steel industry would not rebound, the city has focused on promoting health care and higher education and been relatively successful, Glazer said.
Officials need not to focus so much on attracting industries, but in creating places where people want to live and work, Glazer said.
The reality of how the economy has developed has defied what expectations would have been, he said. As computer technology developed, forecasters initially thought that workforces would be more dispersed with employees working from home, he said, but in fact urban areas have become more concentrated with highly educated workers, he said.
And those workers are less concerned about the cost of living than they are the amenities that the urban areas offer, Grimes said.
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