Our Mitten is Unraveling

Some of you are following the economic meltdown known as Michigan.

According to the Business Journal (and just about everyone in economic realms), the three weakest states (economically) in the U.S. are Nevada, Michigan and Arizona.

Here is the BACKBREAKER of it all. Michigan ranked 51st out of all 50 states. Yes, that’s right. 51st. They included D.C. as the 51st territory and we still fell in under them.

We did get one #1 ranking though.

Ahem…In unemployment

The state’s woes bleed onto our dear little Prison City (Jackson) as well. Thus we earn our fame by pulling in third place in unemployment, just below Detroit and Flint.

And of course, these piggy bank problems wound our schools in the trickle down. Hence why Jackson Public (the school district where my husband and I are employed) continues to battle out about how to spread the thinning dollars even thinner.

http://www.mlive.com/news/jackson/index.ssf/2009/12/staff_reductions_at_jackson_pu.html

As a result of state budget cuts, our district has tightened its belt, which meant they closed Amy Firth–the alternative school for middle school students.

This has “pop-up” affect for me, since some of those middle schoolers are now popping up in the alternative high school where I work.

That story is here:
http://www.mlive.com/news/jackson/index.ssf/2009/12/amy_firth_middle_school_studen.html

The good news is that even though many dollars have gone down the drain, it hasn’t stopped people like the Center for Family Health from not only continuing to offer medical services to our community’s needy, BUT TO RAISE HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS TO DO MORE.

There’s one bandaid for Jackson’s piggy bank.

And one more knot to keep the Mitten’s thread from further unraveling.

You can read about some of the latest here: