Author name: Victor Skinner

A new analysis of the Best Cities for Jobs in 2025 ranks Michigan’s largest nearly dead last. The personal finance website WalletHub compared more than 180 U.S. cities across 31 key indicators of job-market strength – from opportunities per job seeker, to employment growth, to monthly average starting salary – to determine the best for finding work.

The analysis produced an overall rank for 182 cities, as well as a job market rank and socio-economics rank, and Detroit ranked among the worst in all three. Overall, the Motor City came in 181st out of 182, one spot ahead of last place Memphis, Tenn. Detroit ranked 176th for job market and 178th for socio-economics.

For the job market, WalletHub considered indicators like job opportunities, employment growth, starting salaries, unemployment, job security and satisfaction, full time employment, and workers in poverty, among others. Memphis was the worst, followed by Detroit, San Bernardino, Calif.; Augusta, Ga.; Baton Rouge, La.; Gulfport, Miss.; Bakersfield, Calif.; Huntington, W. Va.; Stockton, Calif.; and Shreveport, La. Detroit’s persistently high unemployment is due in part to bigger problems in Michigan under Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. In just the last year, 36,000 more Michiganders became unemployed, marking a 17.3% increase since November 2023.

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The number of new Michigan unemployment claims swelled by more than 7,800 last week over the week prior, significantly outpacing every state in the nation. In total, the state estimates 19,349 Michiganders filed new unemployment claims during the week of Christmas, or 7,810 more than the 11,539 that filed claims during the previous week, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s weekly unemployment insurance claims report.

That growth in new claims dwarfs all states and the District of Columbia, with the next closest states of New Jersey at 5,637 additional claims, and Pennsylvania at 5,331. Across the U.S., the net increase in initial unemployment claims was 7,441, as declining unemployment in 26 states was outpaced by increases in the rest. In November, about 9,000 Michiganders lost their jobs as the state’s unemployment rate ticked up for the eighth straight month, growing at double the national average.

State officials in November reported Michigan’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate jumped two-tenths of a percentage point from September to come in at 4.7% for October, then later revised that figure to 4.6%. The Michigan Department of Technology, Management and Budget reports Michigan’s unemployment rate has since swelled to 4.8%, jumping another two-tenths of a percentage point as the national unemployment rate increased by 0.1% in November. It’s now at the highest point since November 2021, when the state was still reeling from government imposed pandemic restrictions. 

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Michigan taxpayers gave General Motors $600 million to create thousands of jobs at an Ultium Cells battery plant near Lansing, now they’re waiting to see if a South Korean company fulfills that obligation. GM announced earlier this month it’s backing out of the joint venture with LG Energy Solution that was funded in part by the largest taxpayer incentive package in state history, but neglected to mention it already pocketed the cash.

“State records obtained by The Detroit News indicate the entire performance-based grant was paid out by the Michigan Treasury Department to GM and its partner in an EV battery plant between June and September 2023, more than a year before the Detroit automaker announced Dec. 2 that it would sell its stake in the Lansing area battery plant that had received part of the grant,” the news site reports.

The 2022 incentive package, the first approved through a newly created Strategic Outreach and Attraction Reserve fund run by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, paid out a record $666 million for the Ultium Cells plant and to transition GM’s Orion Township assembly plant to produce all-electric pickups. The agreement was predicated on GM’s promise to invest about $4 billion in Orion Township and $2.5 billion in Ultium Cells, and create about 3,200 jobs – 1,840 in Orion Township and 1,360 at the Ultium Cells plant.

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Michigan lawmakers are doling out taxpayer cash to corporations faster than any state in the nation, and it’s not even close. “From 2018-2023, Michigan spent twice as much on incentives as the #2 state,” David Guenthner, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy’s vice president for government affairs, posted to X Thursday, along with the data to back up his claim. “6x Texas, 8x Florida, 12x Tennessee. “All of those states are lapping Michigan in job creation and population growth,” he noted. “Because MI pols would rather subsidize @GM & @Ford than fix the damn roads.”

An attached chart from IncentivesFlow, “a Service from FDI Intelligence,” shows Michigan spent $2.663 billion in taxpayer-funded economic incentives over the six-year time frame. South Carolina, the next closest state, spent $1.6 billion, followed by California at $1.3 billion, Indiana at $1.215 billion, and Oregon at $1.013 billion.

The spending data follows just days after the Mackinac Center released a report titled “Front Page Failures” that exposes the futility of Michigan’s taxpayer-funded economic incentives. “Front page new stories in Michigan’s largest newspaper from 2000 to 2020 announced the creation of a total of 123,060 new jobs,” according to the report. “State reports show these deals created just 10,889 jobs in the end, a success rate of just 9%. Only one in 11 of the announced jobs in these front page stories ever came to fruition.”

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