Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has conceded that her claim of having created 25,000 auto jobs was based on announcements, not actual jobs.
The governor has avoided Michigan Capitol Confidential’s requests for comment on her job claims for several months. But in response to a fact check by the Detroit Free Press, a Whitmer representative said that the administration produced a favorable estimate of its employment performance based on public statements by Michigan businesses.
CapCon has estimated that Michigan has lost 1,600 auto jobs since January 2019, according to federal job data. The governor did not respond to CapCon’s requests for clarification.
But Whitmer’s team finally revealed its methodology on Friday. Clara Hendrickson of the Detroit Free Press wrote in her fact check of Whitmer’s auto job claims: “Publicly available employment data does not show that Michigan has gained 25,000 additional jobs in the auto industry since January 2019 when Whitmer entered office.”
Hendrickson writes in her account: “Whitmer spokesperson Bobby Leddy wrote in an email that the jobs figure from the governor is ‘a conservative estimate’ of the jobs auto manufacturers and suppliers have announced since 2019 as part of auto manufacturing expansions supported by the state.”
Conservative or not, Leddy’s statement confirms what James Hohman, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy’s director of fiscal...
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