Economy

Michigan's unemployment rate dipped for the second month in a row to 8.5 percent.

The unemployment rate represents those in the labor force who do not have jobs.

People are counted as part of the labor force if they looked for a job - even once - during the four weeks prior to the BLS' giant phone survey.

We like to chart unemployment along with the overall labor force numbers to give you a clearer picture of what's going on in the state.

As our chart shows below, the overall labor force in Michigan dropped dramatically starting in 2007. Even though the unemployment rate has been dropping over the last 3+ years, the labor force only recently starting ticking upward.

MPRN's Rick Pluta has more on the numbers:

The drop in the monthly jobless rate was actually a change from recent history because it is due to 17,000 more people being added to payrolls, and not because people were leaving the workforce and no
longer competing for jobs.

Most of the job gains in March were in temporary help, and business services like IT and accounting. There were some job losses in the volatile retail and construction sectors.

And this is from the Michigan Department of Technology, Management & Budget's press release:

"Overall, Michigan’s labor market situation in early 2013 has been positive,” said Michael Williams, acting director of the Bureau of Labor Market Information and Strategic Initiatives. “The state’s unemployment rate in March was the lowest recorded since mid-2008, and payroll jobs this year
are the highest since the fourth quarter of 2008."

(If you want more numbers to digest, there are a whole lot more in the press release above.)

If you could walk into any school in Michigan and look around at the students, you might not realize it, but somewhere in there you would see students who are homeless.

There are more than 37,500 homeless students in Michigan, and that's up 66 percent in the past four years. So, even as the economy begins to struggle its way toward recovery in Michigan, we have a rising number of homeless students trying to struggle their way through school.

Joining us to talk about the challenges that homelessness poses to students and to the school districts are Angela Parth, the executive director of "The Connection Youth Services" in Livingston County, and Holly Fiedler, the homeless Liaison and Social Worker at Milan Area Schools.

Listen to the full interview above.

Researchers predict tourists will pump more money into the Michigan economy this year.

Tourism spending in Michigan went up by about 6 percent in 2012, and Michigan State researchers say the state should see a similar increase this year.

They predict a 5.5 percent increase in spending for 2013.

Michigan State University experts, Sarah Nicholls and Dan McCole, released their annual tourism forecast today at the Pure Michigan Governor’s Conference on Tourism in Detroit.

More from an MSU press release:

Nicholls said The Henry Ford in Dearborn had a record year with visits up 25 percent, to 1.9 million. Visits to Michigan’s popular national parks – including Sleeping Bear Dunes, up 14 percent; Pictured Rocks, up 6 percent; and Isle Royale, up 5 percent – far outpaced the 1 percent average increase at all national parks across the country.

In the state’s hotel sector, 2012 saw the highest occupancy rates since 2000, added Nicholls...

“We can attribute these positive outcomes in 2012 to a combination of factors including the warm, dry summer and fall, a continued rebound in consumer confidence, relatively steady gas prices and the continuing influence of the state’s Pure Michigan advertising campaign,” Nicholls said.

Despite the positive trends, the researchers say something unexpected could change things. They're waiting to see how the economy will fare when the effects of the sequester budget cuts set in.

The researchers say Michigan fits well with many tourism trends occurring around the country.

Michigan’s home foreclosure rate is no longer among the nation’s worst.

Realty Trac reports Michigan ranked 16th in the nation in home foreclosures in March.  That is a far cry from a few years ago when the state had the nation’s highest foreclosure rate.

Mary Townley is with the Michigan State Housing Development Authority.  She credits the authority’s “Step Forward” program for providing assistance to people at risk of losing their homes…

If you are a working woman in Michigan, you will average 73 cents for every dollar made by a man, according to a study recently released by the American Association of University Women. 

Michigan women rank seventh among the states and Washington D.C. in the wage gap between men and women, but what does that mean? What is it about Michigan that might lead to this gap?

And, as Michigan becomes a Right to Work state, what effect will that have on the wage gap?

Michigan Radio's Cynthia Canty was joined by the President of the American Association of University Women in Michigan, Janet Watkins.

Watkins explained the study, and addressed the effect of the gender wage gap among varying industries and ethnicities throughout the state of Michigan. 

You can get more information about Equal Pay Day at www.aauwmi.org.

To hear the full story, click the link above. 

Next week, President Barack Obama will present his budget to Congress. 

There's a lot of speculation about what changes will be proposed for Medicare and Social Security.

Specifically, some analysts are focusing on something called 'chained CPI.'