Gov. Gretchen Whitmer wants Michiganders to remember “what happened under Donald Trump,” insisting “hundreds of thousands of jobs were lost across all industries” during his tenure.
Whitmer took to X during the vice presidential debate on Tuesday to take shots at the 45th POTUS and laud the Biden-Harris administration’s economic policies, while ignoring the impact of pandemic edicts from her office.
“Michigan remembers what happened under Donald Trump,” Whitmer posted. “Hundreds of thousands of jobs were lost across all industries, including manufacturing. The Biden-Harris administration was critical to bringing jobs back to Michigan. Good for @Tim_Walz for standing up for American workers.”
Michigan remembers what happened under Donald Trump. Hundreds of thousands of jobs were lost across all industries, including manufacturing. The Biden-Harris administration was critical to bringing jobs back to Michigan. Good for @Tim_Walz for standing up for American workers.
— Gretchen Whitmer (@gretchenwhitmer) October 2, 2024
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A fact check on Whitmer’s claims, however, shows her pandemic edicts cost Michigan more jobs than most other states, and contributed to economic disaster that’s still weighing on some industries in 2024.
On March 16, 2020, Whitmer issued an executive order that closed all dine-in bars and restaurants, gyms, coffee houses, and most public places, while also banning gatherings of 50 or more people.
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Five days later, the governor shuttered hair salons and similar services, before ordering all “non-essential” workers to hide in their homes on March 23. That lockdown lasted until June 1, though restrictions on some businesses remained. On Nov. 15, Whitmer issued another three-week “Pause to Save Lives” order that again limited indoor gatherings until Dec. 20, 2020.
President Trump approved Michigan’s Disaster Declaration on March 28, making federal funding available to help individuals impacted by the pandemic. He also signed into law legislation that pumped $8.3 billion to states to fight the coronavirus, as well as $260 billion in unemployment for laid-off workers, $687 billion in relief for small businesses, and another $900 billion in stimulus relief.
Analysis of the initial consequences of Whitmer’s decisions were detailed by multiple sources.
An Opportunity Insights Economic Tracker from Harvard found Michigan endured significant losses in small business revenue as a result of the governor’s lockdowns.
“In Michigan, as of August 9, 2020, total small business revenue decreased by 15.9% compared to January 2020. Looking back, shortly after the MI Stay at Home Order was declared on March 24, small business revenue decreased as low as 51% compared to January 2020,” the Detroit Regional Chamber wrote in an analysis of the tracker data in August 2020.
The number of businesses open at the time had declined by 24.6% from prepandemic numbers, according to the data.
By December 2020, that figure was 32%, while the national average was 19%, according to a report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“According to the findings of the report, no state has been more negatively impacted than Michigan,” the Republican Governor’s Association noted. “Under Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s extreme and arbitrary guidelines, 32% of Michigan businesses were forced to close at least temporarily, the most out of any state in the nation.
“A deeper dive into the numbers highlights that Whitmer’s actions impacted more than 70,000 establishments and over 1.26 million employees from July-September.”
Other analysis of BLS data that compared jobs in April 2019 to April 2020 also illustrated how Whitmer’s decisions led to far more unemployment than other states.
“Michigan saw the largest proportional job loss at 23% between April 2019 and April 2020,” according to a study from the personal finance website LendingTree. “The state lost about 1 million workers in total. If we multiplied all those jobs by the average annual earnings in Michigan, they are equivalent to $51.6 billion in lost annual earnings.”
Many of the job losses came from the hotel and lodging industry, which lost a total of 20,230 jobs in 2020 alone. That figure was higher than all but eight states, according to the American Hotel & Lodging Association’s Oxford Economic Analysis.
It wasn’t until November 2023 that Michigan recovered all jobs lost during the pandemic, while the average state had recovered by June 2022.
But the ramifications of Whitmer’s leadership continued.
“Michigan’s restaurant industry is in a far more precarious place than we had anticipated,” Justin Winslow, president of the Michigan Restaurant and Lodging Association, said in June. “The residual impact of the pandemic has had a long tail, particularly for independent, full-service restaurants, as protracted inflation and workforce challenges have made it exceedingly hard to sustain even a modest profit.”
In 2024, four years after the pandemic, 40% of Michigan restaurants are not profitable, 60% have cut hours, 89% are struggling with commodity inflation, and 70% expect things to get worse over the next year, according to results of an MRLA survey conducted this spring.
It’s a similar situation with businesses in general.
A survey from Business Leaders for Michigan released in August found more than twice as many CEOs believe the state’s economy will get worse through the second half of 2024 than those who believe it will improve.
“We’ve seen improvements to our short-term economic outlook, but persistent barriers to sustained long-term growth. Consumers and businesses are worried about increased costs, many of which can be impacted by state policies and talent shortages,” said Jeff Donofio, CEO of Business Leaders for Michigan. “To grow our economy, Michigan needs to continue improving its competitiveness in job and business creation and talent.”