Time & Perspective Quote by Jennifer M. Granholm

Michigan is being framed here as a promise that used to be simple: show up, work hard, and you can still build a life. Granholm’s line is doing more than reminiscing about a manufacturing golden age; it’s establishing a moral baseline for economic policy. The “great history” isn’t just a timeline, it’s an argument that the state’s identity was built around accessible prosperity. By invoking migration into Michigan, she reminds listeners that the middle class was once a magnet, not a mirage.

The pivot word is “Consequently.” She turns pride into precarity: the very feature that made Michigan exceptional - good wages without credential gatekeeping - now leaves a bigger share of residents exposed when the floor drops out. “Outsourcing, et cetera” functions as a catchall for forces that feel impersonal and unstoppable: offshoring, automation, corporate consolidation, the slow erosion of union power. The vagueness is strategic. It keeps the blame diffuse while keeping the pain specific.

Subtextually, she’s negotiating a political tightrope. She’s not scolding workers for lacking degrees; she’s legitimizing their vulnerability and reclassifying education as a policy tool rather than a personal virtue. The context is a Rust Belt reckoning in which the old bargain (loyal labor for stable wages) collapses, and the state must decide whether to chase the next industry, retrain at scale, or simply manage decline. Her intent is to make that choice feel urgent, collective, and historically owed.