> Hohman examined eight major projects—"those that offered $100 million in payments and received significant media attention"—totaling $2.7 billion in promised incentives<p>> All told, the governor said that her major subsidy projects would create 20,595 jobs in Michigan<p>Even using these numbers that works out to $135k/job, which is bonkers!
selectively giving away free money to big business is straight corruption. there is no other way to put it. everyone involved should lose re election and get investigated by the financial crimes unit.<p>but i dont think "leave it up to the market" is a better idea. investments like this just need to be transparent, open to everyone and set up strict punishment for stealing the money with prison for executives.<p>if they wanted to actually create jobs they would support small companies and set up open competitive programs based on project quality. or start a state investment bank giving super low interest loans so factories can expand without cutting profitable divisions like in china.
One idea I like is directly funding apprenticeship. It pays for job training and classroom instruction on a per-individual basis. The jobs are in long-term career sectors like advanced manufacturing, shipbuilding, aviation, healthcare, and technology.<p>Here's one example: <a href="https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/osec/osec20250923" rel="nofollow">https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/osec/osec20250923</a><p>In Georgia, the employer is reimbursed $2,500 when an apprentice starts and up to $10,000 when they finish. They can also get up to 75% of the apprentice's hourly wage covered during their initial on-the-job training.
> A new report suggests the state of Michigan is the latest to learn that lesson the hard way.<p>There doesn’t seem to be any lesson-learning happening, since governments keep trying this despite the outcome always being the same.
Originally on reason.com: <a href="https://reason.com/2026/06/26/michigan-spent-1-8-billion-and-only-created-602-jobs/" rel="nofollow">https://reason.com/2026/06/26/michigan-spent-1-8-billion-and...</a>
With a link to the report: <a href="https://www.mackinac.org/archives/2026/s2026-08.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.mackinac.org/archives/2026/s2026-08.pdf</a><p>The two largest projects are still under construction, so it might be too early to make any conclusions.
This looks like Michigan transferred actual cash. Not tax abatements on new projects.
That works out to 2.5 million per job.<p>This is not the first time this type of thing happened almost looks like a laundering scam. Companies that do this should face real and very expensive consequences. But we know that will never happen.
The first Trump term tariffs on washing machines was studied, it resulted in jobs that cost ~820k each in higher prices to the consumer.<p>The important takeaway is not only did the consumer pay more, but corporate profits rose.<p><a href="https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/BFI_WP_201961-1.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/BFI_WP_201961-1....</a>
The tfa says that almost all of this went to big public automakers. Enraging. I initially thought that this was going to some small biz thing that at least would slosh the money around through the owners. But nope - corp welfare!
What the hell is that image of Whitner.
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“Click to continue reading”<p>No thanks