Economy
This section contains seven key indicators that provide an economic picture of Midland County.  They give a framework to work with that allows the community to measure and estimate how any individual piece of economic data may affect the community individually and as a whole, and to then project its effect on the Midland County as whole. There are several issues that emerged from the data in this section:
  • Midland County's economy is impacted by the number large firms and the number of jobs related to providing services for these firms.
  • Overall poverty rates in Midland County are below state and federal levels, but whereas national and state rates of poverty taper off as the population ages, poverty remains a constant for persons under 64.  However, new data on the lives of the working poor in Michigan and its counties including Midland adds a great deal of information about the entire population. The study, ALICE in Michigan (ALICE is an acronym for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed), reports that about 40% of the population falls in the category of working poor with 13% living in poverty and 19% classified as working poor in Midland County.
  • With continued growth in service sector, better data must be created an analyzed to gauge underemployment.
  • Home ownership is particularly important for families with children. Families that are transient are less likely than others to develop ongoing, supportive relationships in their neighborhoods, schools, churches, and social organizations.  Increasing access to affordable housing can increase outcomes in education and health measures.
  • The overall mean household and family income is high in Midland County (and equal to federal levels), it is impacted by the distribution of more family/households earning over $200,000 (7.2% compared to 6.2% in the US and 4.2% in Michigan) and less family/households earning below than $35,000 in Midland County (21.6% compared to 25% in the US and 26.3% in Michigan) , where there are slight differences in distribution.  In both Midland County and Michigan there are also a slightly more families/households earning between $35,000 and $100,000 (~50% in Michigan and Midland County and 48% in the US).  The larger the number of families/households in this bracket, the more equitable income distribution, which is essential to a sustainable economy for all citizens.  This is impacted by several factors: (1) large multinational firms that have high skill jobs available; (2) reduction of high salaried/specialized technical labor (votech) jobs within the local economy; and (3) lack of a diverse combination of government, higher education, insurance, manufacturing, and other service industries that can insulate the economy during times of change.
  • The prevalence of high skill, high wage, and high growth jobs serve to further enhance the skilled local workforce by attracting additional creative people and businesses to our community.
  • The large firms (and growth in crucial sectors in Midland County--health and technology) have created a lower unemployment rate and a market for jobs that require more education (a positive for growth in other sectors) but have also made the community more dependent on global markets and these firms for economic development.
  • Three trends are largely responsible for the rise in homelessness over the past 20 years: (1) an increase in poverty; (2) a growing shortage of affordable housing; and (3) rising number of disconnected youth (16-25 year-olds) as a result of a loss of entry level work with livable wages. 
  • Explore policy changes that might reduce disparities in income and wealth attainment that occur across age, class, and geography in Midland County.
  • In order to gain a better understanding of the health care delivery climate and its impact across other sectors, Midland County needs to study the economic climate of the entire community. Data on population demographics, employment and labor force, and the jobless rate are important to understand the link between population and the types of health care services required by an area’s residents.
This section contains seven key indicators that provide an economic picture of Midland County.

Click on each section to access the information.

Business Index

Knowledge Economy

Unemployment

Poverty

Per Capita Income

Home Ownership

Homelessness
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