JUNE 23 • 2022 | 31

Chamber sponsors programs to assist 
underserved communities in K-12 
schools, to help students achieve success 
in two-year and four-year degree 
programs and also to attract highly 
skilled workers to relocate to Michigan. 
Baruah notes that just over 40% of 
Michigan’s adult population hold college 
degrees, lagging behind the nearly 
50% in other states. The Chamber 
sets 60% as a goal, and Baruah lauds 
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for 
adopting the 60% goal. To achieve that 
goal, Baruah believes, Michigan will 
have to overcome racial disparities in 
education. 
Lester suggests we need to increase 
teachers’ salaries and improve their 
working conditions. “We need to attract 
talent, and pay them, and treat them as 
important.” 
How important is the goal of 
improving education in Michigan? Jeff 
Donofrio says, “It’s key. No state can be 
successful without a best-in-class K-12 
and post-secondary education system.” 

2. Population 
Baruah points to a serious economic 
problem in Michigan: “We had a big 
decline in population.” 
Population decline leads to 
labor shortages and other 
bad consequences. 
As Tobocman observes, 
“The Midwest faces dire 
demographics — aging 
population, lower birth 
rates, lower numbers 
graduating high school. The 
implications are huge and 
profound. Think of how 
disinvestment and flight devastated the 
local economy in Detroit.”
Exacerbating the problem, as 
Donofrio notes, “Michigan has a lower 
percentage of people in the labor force 
compared to Great Lakes states (on 
average), even when comparing people 
with the same level of education.”
It does not look like the solution 
can come from natural growth. Krauss 
laughingly challenges audiences, “How 
would you feel about having five more 
children?” 

From where can demographic growth 
come? Tobocman says, “Immigration 
accounts for all of the population 
growth in Michigan over the last 25 
years. Without immigration, we would 
not have grown our population since 
2000.” 
Donofrio agrees: “We firmly believe 
Michigan must work harder to increase 
migration and immigration to the state, 
which would help us bring in more 
talent to our labor force.”
Krauss observes that “the 
past few years of opposition 
to immigration was just 
exacerbating the problem.” 
Baruah would welcome 
increased immigration, 
especially from high-skilled, 
educated foreigners. He 
lists leading companies 
that “are looking for new 
high-tech talented people. 
And frankly, we just don’t 
produce enough in the 
United States.” 
Krauss, though, says we need all sorts 
of immigrants. “We need both. It is not 
either/or; it is both/and.” 

3. Infrastructure
Baruah notes that the Detroit Regional 
Council has been trying to bring 
stakeholders together to upgrade mass 
transit. “There really aren’t prosperous 
cities across the country, or frankly, 

even across the world, that don’t have a 
robust regional public transit system,” 
he said. 
We need sustained attention to other 
infrastructure needs: the classic repair 
challenges of aging dams, bridges, roads 
and water treatment facilities, along 
with new challenges of internet access.

4. Competition for Business Incentives
When businesses decide where to 
locate new projects, they often ask 
governments to compete in offering 
incentives such as tax breaks and 
relaxed regulation. “In a perfect 
world,” according to Krauss, “none of 
us would offer incentives.” But state 
and municipal governments do offer 
incentives to businesses to encourage 
them to build projects, and so Michigan 
must compete. She says, “If we take that 
[incentives] off the table, 
and the competition still 
offers incentives …” She 
does not need to finish the 
sentence. 
Donofrio explains the 
difficult balance: “While we 
don’t want to win a project 
only because of incentives, 
we also don’t want to lose 
projects because we weren’t 
willing to offer them.” 
Because we do need to 
offer balanced incentives, Donofrio 
praises “the recent bipartisan economic 

Sandy 
Baruah, 
president 
and CEO of 
the Detroit 
Regional 
Chamber

Maureen 
Krauss, 
president 
and CEO of 
the Detroit 
Regional 
Partnership

Jeff 
Donofrio, 
president 
and CEO, 
Business 
Leaders for 
Michigan. 

continued on page 33

