Repair Michigan: Creating Good Jobs While Preparing Our Infrastructure for Climate Change
Repairing Michigan will create good jobs, make our systems more efficient and less polluting, and safeguard communities from the impact of climate change, like severe weather such as floods and droughts.
Michigan’s infrastructure systems are in urgent need of significant repair. Our state’s roads and bridges, water, waste water, transit, energy, and communication systems need increased investment to become efficient, safe, and productive for Michigan residents. Repairing Michigan will create good jobs, make our systems more efficient and less polluting, and safeguard communities from the impact of climate change, like severe weather such as floods and droughts.
In this report, the BlueGreen Alliance identified needed investment—some of which is already in the planning stages—in roads, bridges, transit, waste water, drinking water, electricity, natural gas and smart grid. After identifying these needs, we estimated the number of jobs that would be created by making these essential investments in repairing and modernizing our basic infrastructure systems.
More than an estimated 119,300 jobs could be created across the Michigan economy by making much-‐needed investments in our basic infrastructure systems. This includes the number of direct jobs from impacted sectors like construction laborers, equipment operators, and maintenance workers; as well as the number of indirect jobs from industries that service those sectors and supply chains, including the manufacturing of materials, components, and equipment. In addition, we estimated the number of induced jobs supported as the workers buy goods and services, including increased demand for retail, housing, and financial services.