Economies back from the brink
CNBC has been ranking the states since 2007, chronicling their competitiveness from the peak of the housing boom through the Great Recession and now into the recovery.
Michigan is among the top 10 state comebacks, comparing our America’s Top States for Business rankings in 2009—at the depths of the recession—to today.
Michigan
- 2014 Rank: 26
- 2009 Rank: 41
- Improvement: 15 places
No state took a more direct hit from the financial crisis than Michigan. The panic pushed the Big Three automakers to the brink of bankruptcy; GM and Chrysler soon went over the edge. Unemployment hit a staggering 14.2 percent in August 2009. The U.S. government rescued the automakers, temporarily taking an ownership stake as they reorganized and returned to profitability. Gov. Rick Snyder and the state legislature cut taxes and replenished the state’s rainy day fund, and the troubled city of Detroit is in the midst of a historic reorganization. Employers have begun absorbing the state’s flood of available workers, and the jobless rate is roughly half what it was at the recession’s peak.
