Michigan spent $1.8B chasing 20,595 jobs. It got 602 — about $3 million each
A report on eight of Michigan's biggest subsidy deals found $1.8 billion spent for 602 jobs, against 20,595 promised. One project left 'a big empty field.' The thread's fight: whether calling it 'spending' is even honest.
Eight marquee Michigan subsidy deals promised 20,595 jobs for $2.7B in incentives. Actual spend: $1.8B. Actual jobs: 602 — roughly $3 million apiece. Ford's $210M deal has created zero so far; a $261M SanDisk site is 'a big empty field.'
A Xoogler argued the headline cheats: tax abatements aren't 'spending,' since no business means no revenue either way. A VC fired back that this case was actual cash transfers — which makes it worse, not better.
The number, and where it comes from
Reason, summarizing a Mackinac Center report by analyst James Hohman, examined eight of Michigan's largest subsidy projects — each over $100 million, each heavily promoted. Together they promised 20,595 jobs for $2.7 billion in incentives. The state actually spent $1.8 billion and got 602 jobs — about 3% of the promise, at roughly $3 million per job. The individual deals are worse than the average: Ford's $210M package lowered its own estimate from 2,500 jobs to 1,700 and has produced zero so far; GM walked away from its stake in a $666M battery plant; SanDisk negotiated $261M, then withdrew, leaving — in the report's phrase — "a big empty field." Governor Whitmer authorized $6.9B in business subsidies across her tenure.
The fight over the word "spent"
The thread's center of gravity isn't the waste — most agree it's bad — but whether the framing is dishonest. A Xoogler made the strongest version of that objection:
"Claiming the state 'spent' money when it's something like a tax incentive is completely disingenuous bullshit … 'We won't collect additional property taxes on this new thing you're building for 10 years' is not the same thing as spending money. If a business doesn't start there instead you don't get any money at all." — a Xoogler in the startup world
It's the right objection to most subsidy stories — and a growth-equity VC pointed out it doesn't apply here:
"This looks like Michigan transferred actual cash. Not tax abatements on new projects." — a growth-equity VC
That distinction is the whole story. Foregone taxes on a plant that wouldn't otherwise exist cost nothing; cash wired to a company that then builds a field is a transfer with a receipt.
The cleanest summary of the failure mode
The reply that captured the absurdity without ideology came from an engineer doing the only honest accounting — counting what was delivered:
"The money spent on site and land clearing results in a big empty field? Yes, yes it did, that's what those words mean. If we're going to bribe companies to do a thing, we should at least accept when they did do it." — a commenter with \~8k karma
Even taking the state's own promised numbers at face value, a reader did the division: "that works out to \$135k/job, which is bonkers." The implication for anyone watching their own state announce a transformative incentive deal: the per-job math is knowable on day one, and it's almost never the number on the press release.
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