Whitmer’s Health Department Boss Got Nice Raise While Administering Lockdowns

Private sector lost a million jobs in two months in 2020, Gordon gets $13,000 bump

By Tom Gantert | February 1, 2021

As director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, Robert Gordon managed COVID-19 lockdowns on private sector businesses and blamed state residents for the persistent spread of the virus in 2020.

And while private businesses struggled and workers lost their jobs under his department’s orders, Gordon received a big pay increase.

Gordon was one of four members of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s cabinet who enjoyed pay hikes in 2020, a year when 70,088 Michigan businesses and millions of workers were harmed by the state-ordered lockdowns.

Gordon’s gross pay went from $162,007 in 2019 to $175,097 in 2020, an 8% increase.

The other cabinet members who received 2020 pay increases were:

-- Rachel Eubanks, state treasurer: $170,655 in 2019 and $175,436 in 2020.

-- Chris Kolb, budget director: $158,555 in 2019 and $168,573 in 2020.

-- Lizabeth Olson, director of the officer of the state employer: $144,243 in 2019 and $159,604 in 2020.

All four of these cabinet members were appointed by Whitmer in 2018. Gordon stepped down from his position last month.

The gross pay data comes from the response of the Michigan Civil Service Commission to a Freedom of Information Act.

Whitmer’s office didn’t respond to emails seeking comment.

Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.

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Granholm Predicted 62,000 Michigan Battery Jobs — There's Less Than 1,800

She made big boasts on electric vehicle subsidy deals

By Tom Gantert | February 1, 2021

The U.S. Senate Committee on Energy held a hearing in January on the nomination of former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm to become the U.S. secretary of energy. At the hearing, Granholm made a number of dubious statements about her track record on creating jobs in Michigan. Here is one of them:

“I’m really proud actually of my record in Michigan in terms of seeding the area for battery technology,” Granholm said at the Jan. 27 hearing.

There were 40,654 battery manufacturing jobs in the U.S. in 2019, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Michigan accounted for 1,751 of them, or 4.3%.

The figure includes jobs in manufacturing all types of batteries, not just those made for electric vehicles. That classification also includes small batteries, such as those used for watches, transistor radios and flashlights.

In September 2010, Granholm set the bar much higher when she predicted the number of jobs that would flow from the many subsidies she authorized for battery makers. In a conversation with the one of those company’s CEO, LG Chem’s Peter Kim, she said the following:

“During our meeting, Mr. Kim remarked that Michigan is becoming a world capital for advanced batteries,” Granholm said, according to a state press release. “We now have 16 advanced battery companies building facilities in Michigan and hiring people in Michigan, representing $5.8 billion in capital investment and projected to create almost 62,000 new jobs.”