To grow again, Michigan needs the spirit of ‘57
Michigan has done many population studies. It’s never tried to replicate what worked in the past.
My mom was born in January 1957. She was one of 208,806 babies born in Michigan that year — a baby boom the state had never seen before and hasn’t seen since.
Since then, many governors have tried to study Michigan’s population struggles and identify ways to reverse them.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer added another white paper to the pile in 2023. What no one has attempted, though, is asking what was happening in 1957 and trying to replicate it.
Both of my grandfathers were black men who came to Michigan during the Great Migration. My dad’s dad came from New Jersey; my mom’s dad came from Louisiana. These men each had five children.
My parents had just two, my sister and I. Neither one of us has kids.
The story of why Michigan is shrinking can be told one family tree at a time. Watch as fewer branches sprout as you move closer to the present day. Without illegal immigration, Michigan would be shrinking, not merely stagnant.
Low growth has had severe consequences for Michigan. In the 1970s, Michigan had 21 electoral votes in presidential elections. After the reapportionment of 2020, Michigan has just 15 electoral votes — as few as it had a century ago, in the 1920s.
More electoral votes translate into more members of Congress. As Michigan shrinks, so does its voice in the halls of power in Washington.
Here’s what is different between Michigan in 1957 and Michigan in 2026:
Culture of life vs. abortion without limits
In 1957, Michigan had a strict anti-abortion law dating to 1931. As recently as 1972, the year before the U.S. Supreme Court turned abortion into a constitutional right in Roe v. Wade, Michigan voters rejected a measure to loosen the 1931 law.
Just a few years after 1957, the birth control pill came on the market. Then, in 1973, the famous U.S. Supreme Court case struck down abortion restrictions. When Roe was overturned in 2022, Michigan voters promptly passed a constitutional amendment allowing limitless abortion.
In May 2023, Whitmer signed a law elevating abortion to a civil right. The next month, she assembled a blue-ribbon commission to study why Michigan’s population wasn’t growing.
Blue-collar jobs vs. “Jobs of the Future”
For much of the 21st century, Michigan leaders have spoken of the “jobs of the future” and the need to compete for them.
By that, they usually mean laptop jobs. These are the jobs least likely to be disrupted by force majeure events such as the government-mandated lockdowns Whitmer ordered during COVID.
But there are two problems with that: Michigan historically runs more on brawn than brains, and it was richest when that was the case.
And Michigan’s schools do not produce top achievers. Right now, Michigan is ranked 44th in education, placing it in the bottom six. Fully 95% of eighth graders in Detroit cannot read at grade level.
This is happening while Michigan spends record amounts per pupil, yet produces students who talk about “pronouns” but do not know what a pronoun is.
If laptop jobs are the future, that future will pass Michigan by.
Men who worked with their hands used to be able to buy homes, own vacation homes, and fund college educations. In recent years, Stellantis — a descendant of Chrysler, one of the old Big Three — has cut third shifts to comply with green energy rules in California.
In 2023, when Democrats held all the gavels in Lansing, they repealed Michigan’s right-to-work law, which freed workers from being forced to join labor unions as a condition of employment. In the years since, states like Indiana, Tennessee, and Alabama have pulled in manufacturing jobs that might once have gone to Detroit.
The working men of Michigan are being squeezed on all sides.
In 1957, Michigan was just over a decade removed from serving as America’s “Arsenal of Democracy” during World War II.
Michigan, its prominent companies, and its large labor unions all take credit for creating the American middle class.
Yet in the 1990s, President Bill Clinton pursued a model of globalization that weakened Detroit to the benefit of Mexico. China’s entry into the World Trade Organization was another blow.
We were told this was creative destruction, that no place has a monopoly on the future. And now China manufactures many items critical to U.S. national security, including prescription drugs.
Deindustrialization was not inevitable; it was a choice. The dismantling of American industry was done, and it can be undone. President Donald Trump’s tariff policy was the first true attempt to Make Detroit Build Again rather than pivot to the “jobs of the future.”
What Trump got in return was a wave of complaints from labor unions, which are aligned with Democrats.
Whitmer went to Washington to speak out against the tariffs, a trip that ended with her holding a blue folder over her face in the Oval Office.
Trump has attempted to make Detroit the world’s once-and-future manufacturer. But few in Michigan have joined him. For many, it was more important to play politics.
James David Dickson is host of the James Dickson Podcast. Join him in conversation on X at @downi75.
