Michigan Having ‘Hardest Times In The Union’? That’s So 2009

An article by a Detroit freelance writer named Drew Philp titled “‘The new Obama’: will Abdul El-Sayed be America’s first Muslim governor?” said Michigan was suffering hard times.

The article appeared in the Guardian, a British daily newspaper, and was picked up by the Drudge Report. With 24 hours, it had been shared on Facebook more than 16,000 times.

The article is an overwhelmingly positive look at El-Sayed that chronicles his attempt to become governor of Michigan. But the writer, who lives in Detroit, described Michigan as “a state that is having some of the hardest times in the union.”

ForTheRecord says: Philp didn’t respond to an email sent to his website asking clarification about what aspect of this state was having such hard times. If Philp meant the state economy was suffering through the hardest times in the country, he needs to update his data. It’s no longer 2009.

Michigan’s growth in per capita personal income was the fifth-best in the country for the period 2009 to 2016. During that time, Michigan rose from having the 40th-fastest income growth to the 31st. Michigan had a net job gain of 454,800 jobs from 2009 to 2016, an 11.7 percent increase that was 14th-best among the states.

Michigan’s unemployment rate dropped to 3.7 percent in July, making it the 16th lowest in the U.S. Michigan had the highest unemployment rate in the country from April 2006 to February 2010, a span of 47 months. That was when Michigan was having "some of the hardest times in the union."