Remember how Lucy would promise she would hold the football for Charlie Brown, and then at the last second she would pull it away and he would flop onto his back? And remember how he fell for it over and over and over again?
Gotta be honest, it feels a bit like Michigan is Charlie Brown and the big auto companies are Lucy! They promise jobs over and over, but at the last moment…jk!
Here are Five Fast Facts on broken job promises in Michigan:
- 💔 Promises, Promises - The state of Michigan has already invested $1 billion in five EV battery plant projects, and promised another $1 billion over the next couple years. In return, those projects are supposed to create over 11,000 jobs in the state.
- 🤦 The Flop - A review in June showed that only about 200 workers have been hired at those projects, and most of those were manager level jobs rather than front line workers. But hey, that’s not stopping them from asking for billions more already!
- 😠 Put Up Or Shut Up - A lot of business leaders and lawmakers are done waiting for results, and some are saying no further money should be tossed their way until the jobs appear. Lucy’s bluff has been called!
- 🙏 Patience, Please - It seems like the bigger the project, the more delays there are. The companies building these plants are saying it’s only been a couple of years, and it’ll still be a couple more before things really get cooking. No really, let me just set that tee up for you again…
- 🤔 Wild Card - One possible reason for some of the feet-dragging is the new Trump administration. He’s typically been very friendly to American manufacturing, but some of his proposals (like tariffs) are pretty spicy. So, there’s some reasonable uncertainty until he’s actually in office and reveals the details of what he’s going to do.
🔥Bottom line: With billions of taxpayer dollars already spent and almost nothing to show for it, the angst is real. Could these projects turn out the promised thousands of jobs? Sure they could! But just ask Charlie Brown how that’s worked out for him.
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