Michigan Governors, Legislators Give Auto Companies $22.7 Billion — State Loses 145,600 Auto Jobs Since 2000

While Michigan lawmakers have green-lit billions in subsidies over the past quarter of a century, they haven’t helped the state stop bleeding auto industry jobs, a new analysis revealed.According to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, of the 315,000 auto and auto parts manufacturing jobs the Wolverine State boasted in 2000, it has lost 145,600 since then. That comes as state lawmakers have authorized $22.7 billion in business incentives over the same period.

According to MichAuto, a statewide auto cluster association, vehicle production in September in Michigan accounted for 20.2% of the nation’s total vehicle production. The state’s vehicle production in September was 5.3% lower than in August and 12.7% higher than in September 2023.

The industry’s importance to the state has led politicians like Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to try and take credit for an imagined uptick in auto jobs. “Since I took office, Michigan has added more than 25,000 auto jobs,” Whitmer tried to claim in a June 2, 2022, tweet. However, even left-leaning PolitiFact would have none of it, saying the governor’s claim was “mostly false.” It concluded that between January 2019, when Whitmer took office, and May 2022, the number of auto jobs in the state was “slightly lower.” Further, in February, CNN, citing Bureau of Labor Statistics figures, reported that jobs in Michigan’s “plants, parts factories and corporate offices shrank by 35% since 1990. “And those jobs make up only 3.7% of the jobs in the state, roughly half what it was in 1990,” the network reported. “Today, more than four times as many workers in Michigan have jobs at one of the state’s hospitals than at an auto assembly plant.”

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