Michigan is changing. Of course it's kind of being forced to change due to the economy, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. With change comes opportunity to reinvent. And this change, some believe, will be a shift from a manufacturing economy to a more knowledge-based economy.
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In other words, even allowing the rosiest assumptions about a restructured GM and the jobs created by the stimulus, Michigan is likely to continue to suffer for some time ahead. The question is whether this suffering will lead to more of the same -- or to a restructuring that provides for a more hopeful future. In this light it's hard to see how priorities at the federal and state level -- e.g., card check in Congress, or raising taxes to meet budget shortfalls in Lansing, Mich. -- do much to address the hard truth Mr. McCain pointed out last year.
The larger point is that what the middle class needs more than anything else is an economy where employers have to compete for their labor. The more open a state's economy is to investment and entrepreneurship, the more employers there will be. And the more education a state's citizens have, the more advanced the industries they can support.
"Both national and state policy are all designed to restoring a broad middle class that is factory based," says Mr. Glazer. "But manufacturing will not be the driver of the middle class. The path to Michigan's prosperity is knowledge."
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