Detroit excluded.
Via Michigan CAPCON
When Michigan passed right-to-work in December 2012, critics were quick to predict that workers’ compensation would plummet. Union officials derided it as “right-to-work for less.”
Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer, D-East Lansing, said that right-to-work legislation would lower employee wages.
But the early returns show that hasn’t happened.
Michigan’s per-capita personal income increased from $38,291 in 2012 (before right-to-work became law) to $39,215 in 2013, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis. That increase was the ninth highest in the country.
Per-capita personal income includes income from all sources divided by the number of people in the state. Salaries and wages are a part of per-capita personal income, but it also includes dividends, interest, rent employee benefits and transfer payments like Social Security, unemployment and welfare.
“The dire predictions of right-to-work detractors have not come true — Michigan has been a leader in income growth since passage,” said James Hohman, assistant director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
HT Watchdog