Michigan's Economic Future: A New Look

2. Michigan’s Human Resources

2 43 2 Michigan’s Human Resources M ichigan’s greatest asset is its people. In this chapter, we consider the population, labor force, and educational system in Michigan. We begin with a brief look at the trends in population.1 Population Trends in Michigan In 2009, Michigan had a population of about 9.97 million. This makes Michigan the eighth-most populous state. Table 2.1 provides some perspective by showing the twenty states with the largest populations in 2009.2 Michigan entered the union in 1837. The first census after statehood was in 1840, when Michigan had about 212,000 people. Michigan’s population passed the one million mark at about the time of the Civil War. By 1900, the population of Michigan had grown to about 2.4 million. Thus Michigan has had a long history of very substantialpopulation growth.However, therate of growth has been uneven over time. Figure 2.1 shows that Michigan’s population grew very rapidly from 1910 to 1930. The growth slowed down in the Great Depression decade of the 1930s, both for Michigan and for the rest of the United States. Michigan once again experienced rapid population growth from 1940 to 1970. Michigan’s manufacturing-based economy was booming in the middle decades of the twentieth century, and this was associated with rapid population growth. 2 44 2 MICHIGAN'S ECONOMIC FUTURE Since 1970, however, the growth rate of Michigan’s population has fallen dramatically. In the thirty-year period from 1940 to 1970, the state’s population grew by about 69 percent. In the next 30 years, from 1970 to 2000, the population grew by only 12 percent. If the population had grown as rapidly after 1970 as it grew in the thirty years before 1970, it would be more than seventeen million, instead of the approximately ten million who actually live in the state today! TABLE 2.1. Populations of the twenty largest states, 2009 Rank State Population (in millions) 1 California 36.96 2 Texas 24.78 3 New York 19.54 4 Florida 18.54 5 Illinois 12.91 6 Pennsylvania 12.60 7 Ohio 11.54 8 Michigan 9.97 9 Georgia 9.83 10 North Carolina 9.38 11 New Jersey 8.71 12 Virginia 7.88 13 Washington 6.66 14 Arizona 6.60 15 Massachusetts 6.59 16 Indiana 6.42 17 Tennessee 6.30 18 Missouri 5.99 19 Maryland 5.70 20 Wisconsin 5.65 United States 307.01 Source: U.S. Census Bureau, “Population Estimates,”http://www.census.gov/popest/states/states.html. MICHIGAN’S HUMAN RESOURCES 2 45 The population of Michigan peaked at about 10.09 million in 2005. Michigan has lost population in every year since then. The total population loss since 2005 is about 121,000. This means that Michigan’s population in 2009 was about 1.2 percent smaller than in 2005. FIGURE 2.1. Population in Michigan, 1840–2009 Sources: Before 1900: U.S. Census Bureau, “Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1900,” http://www2.census.gov/prod2/statcomp/ documents/1900-02.pdf; 1900 to 1990: U.S. Census Bureau, “The 2010 Statistical Abstract: Historical Statistics,” http://www.census.gov/ statab/hist/HS-04.pdf; 1991 to 1999: U.S. Census Bureau, “Population Estimates: Intercensal Estimates,” http://www.census.gov/popest/ archives/2000s/vintage_2001/CO-EST2001-12/CO-EST2001-12-26.html; 2000 to 2009: U.S. Census Bureau, “Population Estimates: Vintage 2009,” http://www.census.gov/popest/states/states.html. Population (in millions) Year 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 2009 2000 1990 1980 1970 1960 1950 1940 1930 1920 1910 1900 1890 1880 1870 1860 1850 1840 46 2 MICHIGAN'S ECONOMIC FUTURE As a result of slower population growth in the last forty years, Michigan’s share of the U.S. population has decreased from 4.4 percent in 1970 to 3.2 percent in 2009. This slower growth is partly a reflection of Michigan’s sluggish economic performance in recent decades, which we have already discussed in Chapter 1. It is also a reflection of the general movement of the U.S. population toward the south and west.3 There is one silver lining in the cloud of slower population growth. All else equal, a smaller population means less pressure on the environment. Michigan (especially the southern Lower Peninsula) has...