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May 14, 2009
Michigan is hurting. The state's economic meltdown continues, as measured by the official unemployment statistic of 12.6 percent.
The pain families are feeling across this state is palpable and is not captured in Michigan's staggering high unemployment statistics. Watching the unemployment number steadily climb, nearly every year in the new millennium, has numbed us to the anguish it causes to real families. This statistic does not begin to capture the human and community devastation plaguing our state.
The first part of problem solving is problem identification. And the problem is greater than the ever rising unemployment statistic sited monthly by government bureaucrats.
I encourage the governor and the Legislature to create a new methodology that does not mask the devastation this economic disaster has wrought on the people of Michigan. This methodology must measure the true human suffering taking place. Let's call it the HMI, or Human Misery Index.
How is Michigan's misery measured? Let me count the ways:
# The growls of school children's stomachs as they come to school hungry
# lines at soup kitchens and food pantries, composed of people who a year ago were donating and are now recipients
# loss of hope in the faces of the people that have been out of work for years
# homelessness rates among school-age children climb
# soaring home foreclosures
# families with no options to hang on to, fleeing the state
# the giant sucking sound, as our college-educated youth migrate away from their family in search for work
# deteriorating and declining neighborhoods
# poverty is rising and health insurance is disappearing
# pets abandoned along the highways
# rising rates of suicide and depression
# the shame and despair on the faces of parents who can no longer feed, clothe and protect their children
There is a silent disaster happening in Michigan.
Once the HMI is created, it should be presented to Edward B. Montgomery, an economist and the director of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers, who President Obama likened to someone “who helps towns recover after a hurricane or other natural disaster.” We have a disaster right here in Misery Michigan.
Montgomery has been described by colleagues that know him well as “not the sort of economist who views these as abstract problems.” This is good, because these are not abstractions or statistics — these are fathers, mothers, children and communities that are being destroyed.
The assistance most urgently needed are jobs, employment training and, if nothing else, relocation assistance. Do you have some Defense Department contracts you can steer to our tool and die plants, auto suppliers and auto companies? How about FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Assistance) funds for extensive job training to help the unemployed and underemployed gain the skills necessary so they can be absorbed back into productive employment?
Finally, if the jobs are not to be found or created now in Michigan, we need relocation assistance to help families move to areas of the country (if there are such places) that can provide them with a new start.
Certainly, there are other things on our need list, yet, Montgomery, if you can do these three things, the families of Michigan would be grateful.
Our state is standing on the roof and the human misery is rising around us. We need assistance and we need it now.
Tom Watkins served the citizens of Michigan as state superintendent of schools, 2001-05 and state mental health director, 1986-90. He is an education and business consultant and can be reached at:tdwatkins@aol.com.
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