Michigan’s seasonally adjusted jobless rate decreased by one-tenth of a percentage point to 3.6% during June, according to data released by the state’s Department of Technology, Management & Budget.
Total employment increased by 26,000, while unemployment edged down by 3,000, resulting in a labor force gain of 23,000 over the month.
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed into law a bill package expanding voting rights approved by Michigan voters in November of 2022.
The changes include installing dropboxes for voting, nine days of early voting, pre-paid postage for absentee voter applications and a website to track ballots.
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Michigan residents leery of manufacturing electric vehicle batteries in their respective backyards are watching two court cases filed on their behalf of in Marshall and Mecosta County.
On Monday, a legal demand letter challenged the Michigan Economic Development Corp.’s Renaissance Zone designation for the Gotion battery plant outside Big Rapids. A Calhoun County judge is expected to issue a ruling next week on whether to cease development on the Blue Oval Battery Park in Marshall during litigation related to alleged zoning violations.
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Detroit taxpayers forked over $56 million in police settlement payouts between 2020 and four months of 2023.
Those payouts are a record amount in recent history, but public officials won’t explain why.
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The city of Detroit is targeting $95 million of federal money to take care of blight.
That’s in addition to the city’s $250 million bond that voters approved in 2020 to also address blight remediation. The city estimates it has 16,000 vacant homes in the city limits.
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Rep. Ken Borton, R-Gaylord, announced Thursday he’s planning to restore $15 million to the Pure Michigan budget.
The Michigan tourism campaign has spent $450 million since its launch in 2008. Although the bulk of that money came from Michigan residents, the state also appropriated $15 million of federal American Rescue Plan Act funds in the current budget.
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Michigan Democrats are celebrating a record $82 billion budget for 2024 that Republicans say is wasteful and unsustainable without future tax hikes.
It’s the first budget crafted by a Democrat political trifecta in 40 years, which includes rollbacks of the state’s retirement tax on seniors and quintupled the Working Families Tax Credit.
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A Detroit resident pleaded guilty Thursday to stealing more than $550,000 of taxpayer money with the help of a former Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency contract employee, announced U.S. Attorney Dawn N. Ison.
William Haynes, 26, pleaded guilty before United States District Judge Mark A. Goldsmith. Haynes admitted to engaging in a criminal conspiracy with Autumn Mims, a former contract UIA examiner for Michigan. Mims’s duties included reviewing, processing, and verifying the legitimacy of unemployment insurance claims.
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed an executive order establishing the Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential, or MiLEAP.
MiLEAP is meant to improve education outcomes from preschool through postsecondary by establishing clear metrics, collaborating with cross-sector leaders at the local, regional, and state level, and developing a shared action plan.
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The Mackinac Center for Public Policy sued Michigan State University, alleging it violated the Freedom of Information Act by redacting and blacking out key documents and information related to a potential Eagle Township mega site.
The free-market policy research group filed a public records request after reports on a potential government-funded mega site in Eagle Township indicated that some of the land involved might have been sold by Michigan State University. The parcel in question was donated to the university and a tip suggested that the donation agreement possibly prohibits MSU from selling the land for non-agricultural use.
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When Allie Herkenroder applied for the digital equity director position of Michigan’s High-Speed Internet Office (MIHI), she admitted no experience working in state government, broadband, or as an ombudsman.
She still got the job.
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s Growing Michigan Together Council includes one person under 40 and no one from the Upper Peninsula.
The Council will advise Whitmer on policies to reach a population goal for 2050 and prepare Michigan’s workforce for in-demand jobs and emerging industries. The council will develop long-term, sustainable transportation, and water infrastructure funding solutions.
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After a 15-month pursuit, Michigan failed to persuade Micron Technology to build its semiconductor manufacturing plant in Eagle Township.
The Detroit News first reported the story, saying the company picked New York after the Empire State offered nearly $6 billion in incentives for Micron to create nearly 50,000 jobs over 20 years, a press release says.
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Democrats in Michigan have “pleaded” with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to run for president in 2024, citing concerns about President Joe Biden, according to Politico’s Jonathan Martin.
State lawmakers are encouraging Whitmer, Michigan’s two-term Democratic governor, to seek the party’s nomination in 2024 despite her previously ruling out a White House bid, sources familiar told Martin. Several Democratic colleagues from other states have pushed the Michigan lawmakers to plead with the governor to reconsider, including members of the Congressional Black Caucus, citing concerns over the president’s low approval ratings.
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Dewan Williams, 47, of Detroit, turned himself into the custody of the Michigan Department of Corrections last week to begin serving up to a 20-year sentence for scamming taxpayers out of $11 million via a benefits phone scheme.
Williams was sentenced in February in the 3rd Circuit Court on one count of conducting a criminal enterprise, a 20-year felony, and one count of identity theft, a 5-year felony, for using personal information stolen from thousands of identity theft victims to defraud the State and financially benefit himself.
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When government grows, taxpayers should ask why and what they’re getting from it.
A Michigan Senate Fiscal Agency report shows in fiscal year 2017-18, adjusted total appropriations equaled $55.8 billion. From fiscal year 2017-24, spending ballooned to $82 billion – a spending increase of $26 billion, or 47%.
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Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel charged former union leader Jonathan Byrd, 40, of Battle Creek with one count of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct.
Byrd worked for the Michigan Laborers’ District Council, of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, where he pushed forward the repeal of Michigan’s right-to-work law after the alleged incident.
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The Michigan Department of Education is set to receive a 54% increase in funding in the 2023-24 budget despite lagging student test scores.
The proposed budget increases funding for the MDE from $420.6 million in the current budget to $647.4 million in 2023-24. That’s a $226 million increase from the previous fiscal year.
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A Michigan woman is leading an effort to try to oust elected officials in her township for allowing the maker of electric vehicle batteries with ties to China to open a plant in her township.
The headquarters for battery maker Gotion Inc. is in California, but its parent company, Gotion High-tech, is based in China, which is raising concern about its connections to the Chinese Communist Party and national security.
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A federal bankruptcy judge approved Detroit’s plan to push the city’s pension payments for the Police and Fire Retirement System over 30 years instead of 20.
Judge Thomas Tucker ruled that “a 30-year amortization is indeed part of the confirmed [Plan of Adjustment], and the PFRS cannot change it.”
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There’s been a shift in tone from Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer on policing issues, most notably on the funding of the state’s police and adding school resource officers.
After the George Floyd murder in May 2020, Whitmer said that she supported the “spirit” of efforts to defund the police as a way of reallocating resources, the Detroit Free Press reported. A few years later, the state is hiring more than 200 school resource officers with state police funding on the rise.
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After Michigan taxpayers gave $1.75 billion for Ford’s Marshall electric vehicle factory, the company will lay off workers.
Michigan gave the money under the promise of creating 2,500 jobs, but the company cut 3,000 jobs last summer and expects a $3 billion loss on EVs in 2023. After those job cuts, a Ford spokesman said the company has nothing to announce.
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The Democrat-dominated Michigan House passed two sales and use tax bills critics say are unnecessary and will confuse business owners.
House Bills 4377 and 4378 passed on votes of 56-53. The bills cover prepared food either sold in a heated state or heated by the seller or that is two or more food ingredients that are mixed or combined by the seller for sale as a single item.
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Not seasonally adjusted unemployment rates increased in 16 of Michigan’s 17 labor market areas over the month, according to data released today by the Michigan Department of Technology, Management & Budget.
“Regional jobless rates advanced in May as residents began entering the summer job market,” labor market information director for the Michigan Center for Data and Analytics Wayne Rourke said in a statement. “Payroll employment rose in most metro areas over the month.”
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The Michigan House approved six bills to boost union membership that critics say would prioritize union politics before the quality of education.
House Bill 4357 aims to allow school districts to deduct automatically union dues from teacher salaries.
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A federal court on Friday ordered Canadian oil company Enbridge to cease the flow of oil and decommission within three years the segment of its Line 5 pipeline in Wisconsin trespassing on the reservation of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians.
Concurrently, Michigan’s business leaders urged the United States Army Corps of Engineers to give the approval needed for the construction of the Great Lakes Tunnel.
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Starting July 1, car insurance rates will jump in Michigan.
The Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association raised annual per-vehicle assessments on all auto insurance policies.
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Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has asked President Joe Biden for a major disaster declaration and activation of the public assistance program for five counties.
The damage from spring flooding is estimated at $56 million.
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On Tuesday, the city council of Hamtramck, Michigan voted to pass a resolution that forbids the display of pro-LGBTQ flags from any city property.
As reported by Breitbart, the vote by the all-Muslim council of the Detroit-area city was unanimous. The resolution in question was proposed by Mayor Pro-Tem Muhammad Hassan, and also prohibits the display of any flags that feature religious, racial, sexual, or political connotation; only the American flag is allowed on city property under the new measure, along with state and city flags, other nationalities’ flags, and the Prisoner of War flag.
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Local and national efforts to stymie the building of an electric vehicle battery components plant in Michigan were dealt another setback on Tuesday.
The U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment declared that the purchase of farmland in Big Rapids by Gotion was not within its jurisdiction. Opponents of the $2.4 billion plant have protested ties by its parent company to China and raised concerns about the environment.
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A statewide association serving Michigan’s commercial and industrial construction sectors on Monday announced their strong opposition to Democrat-sponsored legislation to repeal the state’s 2011 Fair and Open Competition in Government Construction Act.
Shane Hernandez, president of the Associated Builders and Contractors of Michigan, told The Center Square that the effort announced by House Democrats last March would undo protections for 85% of the state’s construction workers who don’t belong to a union. The current law prohibits union mandates for workers on government building contracts.
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Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed an executive order on Sunday creating a statewide LGBTQ commission to address inequality and discrimination.
The commission will advise Whitmer and the director of the Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity on policy which directly impacts the state’s LGBTQ community, the executive order reads. The commission will also identify ways to attract members of the LGBTQ community to Michigan by assuring them that the state “is a safe place where its members and their families can thrive.”
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The Michigan Senate approved four bills on Thursday covering two topics.
The Senate approved Senate Bill 169 along party lines, which aims to require employers to share employees’ names, home addresses, cellphone numbers, work address locations, and personal email addresses with labor representatives every 90 days.
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Nearly 300 absentee ballots from the 2020 election were found in a Michigan county storage unit, according to a township supervisor.
The ballots were discovered in a storage unit in Genesee County, which encompasses the city of Flint, Mich., and Thetford Township.
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Toyota North America is expanding its facility in York Township near Ann Arbor, a project expected to generate a total capital investment of up to $47.7 million.
Toyota North America plans to add a battery testing facility for battery cell, module, and pack testing capability at its research and development headquarters campus in Saline/York Township.
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Wednesday signed into law three distracted driving bills requiring hands-free cellphone use.
The bills provide exceptions such as hands-free use, emergency use, using a device’s navigation feature as long as the information isn’t entered by hand, or using a single button press, tap, or swipe to activate or deactivate a device or to select a name or phone number.
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Legislation unveiled Tuesday aims to prevent insurance companies and pharmacy benefit managers from using “copay accumulator adjuster programs” that exclude copay assistance payments from counting toward the patient’s deductible or out-of-pocket maximum.
Rep. Carrie Rheingans, D-Ann Arbor, said her bill would help chronically ill people afford medicine, including individuals living with rare conditions such as cancer, hemophilia, and arthritis.
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A Clinton County Circuit Court judge has denied a motion to dismiss felony charges against former DeWitt police officer Chad Vorce for pulling a gun on a newspaper delivery driver.
The motion aimed to dismiss the felonious assault, felony firearm, and misconduct in office charges filed after Vorce drew his weapon twice near a newspaper delivery driver on Jan. 14, 2021.
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Eight people were charged for alleged roles in a $6 million fraud scheme targeting multiple pandemic relief programs, announced United States Attorney Dawn N. Ison.
Since COVID began, foreign and domestic criminals have targeted government assistance programs often using stolen identities bought from the dark web. The indictment says the defendants caused fraudulent unemployment insurance claims, fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program loan applications, and fraudulent Economic Injury Disaster Loan applications to be submitted for multiple individuals and business entities.
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Michigan’s governor by executive order has created the “Growing Michigan Together Council,” a team of nearly two dozen she wants to continue economic momentum while also stopping the migration out of state that has dropped population.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced her new initiative Thursday morning, which she said would address the state’s outbound population and spur further economic development. The council will be chaired by John Rakolta Jr., a Republican, and Shirley Stancato, a Democrat.
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From 2018 to 2022, Michigan reduced by 95% the number of untested sexual assault evidence collection kits held by law enforcement,
USAFacts released last week a state-by-state analysis of rape kits backlogs. Researchers filed public records requests with each state, asking them to provide rape kit backlog data between 2018 and 2022. Thirty states and Washington D.C. provided data.
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Standing in the checkout lines or in virtual lines at Sam’s Clubs in metro Detroit, criminals are spending government benefits stolen from people more than 2,000 miles away in California.
On May 24, three people – Travis Newby, 39, of Detroit, Derriun Williams, 23, of Detroit, and Vanessa Williams, 47, of Highland Park – were arrested and arraigned on felony charges.
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University of Michigan’s Matthaei Botanical Gardens & Nichols Arboretum is committed to diversity – but not simply the diversity of the plants and animals that call the facility home.
It also employs a DEI manager and actively works to combat racism within its 700 acres of gardens and natural preserves to make up for its “participation in systemic injustices.”
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When heavy rain caused the Edenville Dam collapse on May 19, 2020, more than 10,000 people were forced to evacuate from 3,500 homes in mid-Michigan.
Three years later, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office is still litigating the flood.
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Geologists and mining experts say Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula may provide a solution for an obstacle facing the electric vehicle transition.
Minerals are needed, and this area has them.
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Michigan State University (MSU) appears to have revised an inclusive language guide to remove words such as “bunnies,” “chicks” and “America” from its list of potentially offensive terms following a string of backlash, the New Guard reported.
MSU’s language guide originally warned readers to refrain from using specific words, such as “bunnies,” “chicks,” “Christmas trees” and “reindeer,” that could be affiliated with religious holidays. The guide currently posted on the university’s website was revised in April and removes the section as well as one that listed “America” as an avoidable term.
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Unemployment in Michigan’s 17 labor markets decreased by a median rate reduction of 0.8 percentage points in April compared to April 2022, according to data released Thursday morning by the Michigan Department of Technology, Management & Budget.
All but one of Michigan’s 83 counties saw a reduction in unemployment rates between March and April. The median decrease was reported by the DTMB as 1.7 percentage points. Year-over-year rate reductions were experienced in 79 counties.
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The Michigan Supreme Court agreed to decide whether the government can use drones to surveil private property without a warrant and then use that evidence in court for zoning violations.
For two years, Long Lake Township zoning officials flew a drone over Todd and Heather Maxon’s property in northern Michigan, taking photographs and videos as part of a zoning dispute.
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A former employee says Flint Mayor Sheldon Neeley has driven an unmarked city-owned police car since 2019.
The perk has cost taxpayers up to $41,000 in lease costs, auto insurance, maintenance, and gas.
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Michigan faces a nearly $900 million revenue loss this year thanks to recent tax changes as lawmakers plan a record $81 billion budget for fiscal year 2024.
At Michigan’s Revenue Estimating Conference, state Treasurer Rachael Eubanks, Senate Fiscal Agency Director Kathryn Summers, and House Fiscal Agency Director Mary Ann Cleary reached a consensus on revised revenue figures for fiscal years 2023, 2024, and 2025.
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