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Today — 26 June 2026Main stream

The Metro: Confidence is at a record low. So why is metro Detroit launching businesses in droves?

23 June 2026 at 19:36

If it feels like everyone you know is stressed about money right now, the numbers back you up. This spring, U.S. consumer confidence fell to its lowest level ever, dragged down by gas prices and tariffs. Here in metro Detroit, unemployment is running nearly a point above the national rate, and small business owners are gloomy — just 28% think the economy is in good health.

So here’s the puzzle: At the same time, Michiganders are starting businesses at a furious pace — more than 40,000 new business applications in the first three months of this year, up 25% from a year ago. People say the economy scares them, yet they are betting on themselves anyway.

Mark Lee has spent his career advising small businesses across southeast Michigan, and he started his own company in January 2008, right as the last recession hit. He joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro to discuss if these new business owners are jumping or being pushed.

Hear the full conversation using the media player above.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and stream on-demand.

Never miss an episode — subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, NPR, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Support the podcasts you love.

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The Metro: Why homes are built more quickly in West Michigan — and what the rest of the state can learn

By: Sam Corey
23 June 2026 at 17:21

Michigan is facing a serious housing shortage, with experts estimating the state needs to build nearly 100,000 homes.

Outdated zoning laws hinder the creation of diverse, mixed-use neighborhoods, and lengthy permitting processes slow new developments. Additionally, ongoing shortages of construction workers and building materials make it even harder to add new housing units. As a result, many new developments cater to wealthier residents, leaving residents struggling to find affordable options.

Joe Agostinelli, founder of Miller Johnson Growth Advisors, believes better financing and strong partnerships between local leaders and developers are key to expanding Michigan’s housing supply. His team is developing a new riverfront project in Grand Rapids featuring a mix of offices, apartments, and condos. Agostinelli says that city and the broader Kent County area have been able to develop homes faster than places in metro Detroit.

The Metro’s Sam Corey spoke with Agostinelli at the annual Mackinac Policy Conference to discuss how his group is trying to build homes quickly in an environment that often moves slow. 

Hear the full conversation using the media player above.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand. Never miss an episode — subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or NPR or wherever you get your podcasts.

Support the podcasts you love.

One-of-a-kind podcasts from WDET bring you engaging conversations, news you need to know and stories you love to hear. Keep the conversations coming. Please make a gift today.

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The Metro: How government inefficiency hampers population growth in Michigan

By: Sam Corey
22 June 2026 at 20:48

In Michigan, we have many needs: higher-paying jobs, better educational outcomes, and more public transit. Above all, we need more people. 

A lot is at stake. Even if your neighborhood feels bustling, when Michigan’s population stops growing, the state actually shrinks in all the ways that matter. Since 1970, we’ve lost a seat in Congress after every census, and those same population counts decide how hundreds of billions in federal funding are divided. That means less money for roads, water systems, housing, and more. As baby boomers retire, our workforce is shrinking, and Michigan has lost 93,000 workers just since last spring. Fewer people here means less political power, fewer resources, and a smaller tax base to pay the bills.

Michigan’s leaders agree — we need to attract more people to our state. Yet one central question remains: how do we make it happen, and who is responsible for leading the way? Some are trying to answer that question. The state of Michigan has a growth office. The City of Detroit has an initiative to grow its population. 

Jeff Donofrio is a leader in the population growth space. He’s the president and chief executive officer of Business Leaders For Michigan. He’s written about this topic in several reports, and he’s worked for the City of Detroit and the State of Michigan to resolve the problem.

He believes we need to reform teaching.“It’s about making sure that [students are] engaged and can do stuff besides passing a standardized test,” says Donofrio.

He joined host Robyn Vincent on The Metro to explore how government culture needs to change to build more housing, create better regional transit, and to ultimately attract more people to the state.

Hear the full conversation using the media player above.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand. Never miss an episode — subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or NPR or wherever you get your podcasts.

Support the podcasts you love.

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Before yesterdayMain stream

The Metro: Windsor mayor says Gordie Howe Bridge ‘will transcend Donald Trump’s presidency’ when it opens

By: Sam Corey
11 June 2026 at 18:48

The Gordie Howe International Bridge is widely interpreted as strengthening the connection between Canada and the United States, making travel easier and cheaper. It’s seen as a win-win project that Canada paid for and jointly owns with the Michigan.

But President Donald Trump has tried to block the bridge’s opening until Canada meets certain trade-related demands with the U.S. and compensates America for it, even though Canada already paid for the bridge. 

The upcoming opening of the bridge has now been delayed. In an email statement Thursday morning, Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens said, “Although we would all like the Gordie Howe International Bridge to open, Canada need not fall on bent knee to make it happen.”

Producer Sam Corey spoke with Dilkens yesterday before the ribbon cutting was canceled. He says the bridge is “the ultimate symbol of connection” and friendship.

Hear the full conversation using the media player above.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and stream on-demand.

Never miss an episode — subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, NPR, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Support the podcasts you love.

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The Metro: ‘When the economy catches a cold, Detroit gets pneumonia’

By: Sam Corey
10 June 2026 at 20:19

Affordability is the buzzword of the moment — you can watch it climb in how often people google the word itself. But the harder measure is what it actually costs to live: the prices we’re all paying for gas and groceries.

Nearly half of Americans — 49% — don’t have the resources to cover their essential expenses, according to the Urban Institute, and gas prices alone are up about $1 per gallon since late February. More people are going hungry now than at the height of the pandemic. And in Detroit, where many residents were already struggling with food insecurity, that squeeze lands even harder.

“When the economy catches a cold, Detroit gets pneumonia,” said Cass Tretyak, an outreach navigator at Community and Home Supports in Detroit.

She joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro to unpack how economic instability keeps failing people living in poverty — and to describe the daily reality of helping her clients find food, shelter, and benefits, at a moment when new federal rules are making public assistance harder to get.

Hear the full conversation using the media player above.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand. Never miss an episode — subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or NPR, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Support the podcasts you love.

One-of-a-kind podcasts from WDET bring you engaging conversations, news you need to know and stories you love to hear. Keep the conversations coming. Please make a gift today.

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Small Business Association of Michigan CEO says health care reckoning coming for small businesses

8 June 2026 at 19:04

New tariffs and threats to annex Canada were the concerns small businesses at the last Mackinac Policy Conference. This year, those concerns persist, plus you can tack on the high cost of gas.

However, CEO of the Small Business Association of Michigan, Brian Calley, says the rising cost of employee healthcare is the looming giant for employers. He spoke to WDET about the issues surrounding small businesses and his views on how to support them.  

Listen: Brian Calley speaks to Russ McNamara at the Mackinac Policy Conference

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity

McNamara: Last year when we talked, we were absorbing a fight with Canada and tariffs. This year it’s high oil prices, high gas prices. How are small businesses doing after one year of uncertainty? 

Calley: Uncertainty is always hard for small businesses to fight through, but I would add something to that list, which I think even eclipses the collective impact, and that is the rising cost of health care. If you’re to talk to a person who has employees and provides benefits to those employees, which is most small businesses, they are buckling under this year over year over year increased costs. We just did a survey with our members to ask, what does that mean, where are they at? They tell us it’s hindering their ability to grow and to add to their team. They put all their capital growth and their margin toward paying next year’s increases. The increase is on the order of what it would cost to bring on a new employee or two, and so that’s huge. But then now we’re finding 42% of our members in our last survey said that at the current rates they’re one to three years away from being able to offer it at all, and that’s a massive, massive change, and so we’re trying to raise the alarm on this. This is the most talked about thing by small business owners, at least those with employees that gets very little attention or discussion out there in the landscape. These other issues are difficult to deal with, but this one is widespread across this across the board. 

McNamara: Two questions: What can the state do, and what do you need from the federal level? 

Calley: At the state level, which seems to be the more realistic place to make something happen, at least at the moment. Couple of things: when insurance companies file for their rate increases, you can look under the hood, you can see exactly what’s driving the cost, and we know it’s utilization and the cost per service, so we need to look upstream from there. What is driving that? We need to be able to look under the hood of upstream costs, and we’ve seen definitely more consolidation among the health systems, where you have a handful of huge conglomerates that control most of the health care system, and vertical integration, so from your local doctor all the way through to very complex surgical cases, it’s all controlled by a very small number of entities, and with that consolidation, you’ve seen costs rise a lot faster than regular inflation, and so that’s something that we really need to get a handle on.

A lot of states have transparency rules, so they can make the appropriate adjustments and policy to deal with these cost increases. We need something like that here. The other thing that could be changed is to allow small businesses of multiple industries to band together to create their own insurance risk pools, like a big company does. So, if you have a large company, they might use an insurance company to manage their claims, but their employee base is their own risk pool. Small businesses are too small to do that. And so the law could be changed to allow unrelated businesses to pool together, and at least at that point they could have more control over plan design and cost containment and wellness initiatives and negotiation power with networks. This would be an important change that we’re hoping the state will consider. 

McNamara: Will Matt Hall listen? Will Governor Whitmer listen? Are you already planting the seeds for this with the current gubernatorial candidates? 

Calley: We’ve been talking to all the leadership about these issues, and there are things that are happening. We know that on the transparency side, Speaker Hall has indicated and talked a lot about moving forward with something in this arena. With the Senate Democrats, who are in control of that part of the legislature, have introduced legislation to allow that multi-industry pooling of small businesses. So, we do think that there’s good bipartisan support for this.

Small businesses is of those constituencies that, across the political spectrum, Republicans and Democrats appreciate in their community, and I think generally and genuinely want to be successful. We’re hopeful that even during these partisan times that initiatives that can help small businesses move forward and to grow and to sustain will be embraced by all of them. 

McNamara: What kind of feedback are you getting from Michigan’s congresspeople like Moolenaar, Dingle, McClain, Huizenga? What are they telling you? They listen to you. They know you. 

Calley: And I served with some of them in the state legislature, and this is an issue that I know they care deeply about, and there is legislation that same small business pooling, they call them association health plans at the state level, would be called a MEWA, or Multiple Employer Welfare Arrangement, those bodies of work enjoy support among our delegation. In fact, Congressman Walberg from Michigan has introduced legislation to do it at the federal level. It’s not a lack of will, it’s a lack of the ability of that system to move forward to make big changes in the health care arena. It just seems to be difficult to get it off the ground with the broader group, and that’s why our main focuses are at the state level, can kind of get your arms around that, and you can visit the capital, and all of those people represent folks in Michigan, and our delegation, they do a lot of great work, and they care a lot about small businesses, but there’s such a small fraction of the entire body that makes those decisions, and so it’s much harder to move things through that. I think if we are going to make changes that, in the short term, that impact small businesses is more likely to be at the state level. 

McNamara: Is there something else on the state level that can be done, at least in the short term to help these small businesses to deal with the transportation costs and the like? 

Calley: In terms of transportation costs specifically, it’s difficult to establish a state policy to reduce gasoline prices, for example, just because we’re talking about a global marketplace of commodities. But there is also bipartisan work that’s happening in the House and the Senate to move the Michigan Strategic Fund, which is the fund that does incentives for these big deals, to move the focus of that more to support for small businesses, and we think that that’s a smart bet. It’s one thing to try to convince somebody from someplace else to come in here and save us, but what we say is we don’t need that.

What we need is for those that are already here to do well. That’s our best bet, and people that have already made their lives here, they’ve already put their name and reputation and their mortgage of their house on the line in order to make this business go, they’re fully vested, and so their success is our best bet. Our entrepreneurship scorecard report showed yet again this year that when it comes to job growth, that the most reliable and dependable and consistent job creators are small and medium-sized businesses, and it makes a lot of sense, because in a lot of cases, they don’t even have options to go other places. This is where they’re at, this where they’re known, where they have their contacts and their customer base, and it’s not easily transferable to someplace else. If they’re successful, our communities will be successful, workers will be successful, the state will be successful. 

McNamara: So, instead of swinging for the fences, maybe settling for some singles and some doubles. 

Calley: I think that the small business support is the home run, because it’s more of a sure bet when you put the support and the resources here, when you create an environment of success around the people that are already here, it’s gardening. When you go out hunting, you may or may not see something, you may or may not get something, but when you’re gardening, if at least if you know what you’re doing, that’s going to pay dividends over the long term.

And by the way, even the big companies all started out as small companies. When you think about the corporate names that are known all over the world from Michigan, we’re so thankful to have them. Companies that started here, like Dow or Meijer or Kellogg or Gerber or Ford, Striker. These are huge corporate names around the world, but to us here in Michigan, those are family names. In many cases, the family’s still around and involved, which is incredible.

And so, at the Small Business Association of Michigan, we think of those companies as part of our heritage. They didn’t start out big, they made it big, and they changed the world. If you support small businesses, then the next one that makes it big is going to be somewhere in that group, and you can’t predict who it’s going to be, so you might as well just make the environment of success around all of them, instead of trying to pick which one, which industry. The government’s never been successful in knowing where the economy is going to go. 

McNamara: Too slow to react.  

Calley: Yeah, that’s the thing. When things move, they do move fast, and it’s about being well positioned to support people as they grow and they innovate and they change, as opposed to trying to decide ahead of time which one is going to grow and innovate and change in a way that makes a big difference in the economy. There’s so much research and data around economic gardening. When you create the environment of success around the entrepreneur, you will have more economic success collectively. 

 

Trusted, accurate, up-to-date.

WDET strives to make our journalism accessible to everyone. As a public media institution, we maintain our journalistic integrity through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.

Donate today »

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The Metro: Senator Elissa Slotkin says ‘economic basket of issues’ unites Democrats against Trump

By: Sam Corey
28 May 2026 at 17:07

Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin is one of the most closely watched politicians in her party right now.

A former CIA analyst, she took three tours in Iraq alongside the military, and spent years in national security under both Republican and Democratic administrations before she ran for office. Then she won a House seat in a Trump-led district, followed by a Senate seat in a state President Trump carried. When her party needed someone to deliver the Democratic response to President Trump’s address to Congress, they picked her.

She’s been called a centrist. A pragmatist. A rising star. She’s also been called too cautious — not progressive enough, not tough enough — at a moment when many Democrats argue the party must get louder. The Metro‘s Robyn Vincent spoke with her at the Mackinac Policy Conference.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.


Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or NPR or wherever you get your podcasts.

Support the podcasts you love.

One-of-a-kind podcasts from WDET bring you engaging conversations, news you need to know and stories you love to hear. Keep the conversations coming. Please make a gift today.

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Donation fuels hands-on career learning at WDET 

15 May 2026 at 16:49

Honoring their longtime neighbor Mary Lou Kouba, Dr. Nelia Afonso and Dr. George Alangaden are helping WDET-FM 101.9 expand its internship program through a new gift that supports Wayne State University students as well as others across a range of disciplines.  

Afonso and Alangaden have previously donated the bequest Kouba left to them to support access to education and opportunities at Wayne State. In 2023, they established the Mary Lou Kouba Endowed Memorial Scholarship in environmental science to honor Kouba’s dedication to fighting for equality and justice. 

With this new donation on her behalf, Afonso and Alangaden support WDET’s robust paid internship opportunities for Wayne State students and other local young professionals for the next five years.  

Afonso and Alangaden often talked about the news with Kouba. “She had this wonderful outlook on life and taking risks. She was a fierce supporter of independent journalism and the press,” says Afonso. With this gift in her memory, the couple hopes to see young people take to the field and develop creative ways to bring unbiased news to the forefront. 

WDET internships prepare students for success

WDET’s many paid learning opportunities provide hands-on, holistic experiences that educate and prepare the next generation of media professionals. With more than 24 different internship opportunities, the program attracts students from a variety of disciplines to work in reporting, production, marketing, music, business operations and more. Fourteen interns are working at WDET this summer. 

As part of their internships, students are immersed in the media profession and have access to coaching and development workshops. Interns get hands-on experience and have the chance to meet notable visitors. 

Matt Trevethan, Senior Operations Manager, working with Solina Robles, Intern, managing the board of a live broadcast . In the back, Producer Sam Corey answers listener call-ins with intern Meera Kumar.

“Our interns are out in the field interviewing people, traveling across the state. They get that experience, and that’s what makes us different,” says WDET Strategic Initiatives Manager Diane Sanders, who directs the internship program. “I want our interns to see that there’s a lot they can do with their degree.” 

All of WDET’s internship roles are paid positions, which Sanders says is important for providing access to opportunities, in alignment with Wayne State’s mission. Afonso and Alangaden’s donation will cover the cost of two interns a year for five years with some additional funding. 

“We are grateful for the generous gift from Dr. Nelia Afonso and Dr. George Alangaden, which will support WDET’s work in preparing the next generation of media professionals,” said Dr. Keith Whitfield, interim provost and senior vice president of academic affairs. “As a community service of Wayne State University, WDET plays a key role in fostering connection, community and opportunity in Detroit, which includes its fantastic internship opportunities.” 

With this gift, Afonso and Alangaden join other major supporters of WDET’s internship program, including Michigan Central, the Harry A. and Margaret D. Towsley Foundation, the Ralph L. and Winifred E. Polk Foundation, the May Mitchell Royal Family Foundation, a 2025 Wayne State Presidential College to Career Pilot Award, as well as a number of other individual donors. 

For more information about WDET’s internship program, visit WDET’s internship page.

This story was cross-posted with WSU’s Division of Academic Affairs.

Support local journalism.

WDET strives to cover what’s happening in your community. As a public media institution, we maintain our ability to explore the music and culture of our region through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.

The post Donation fuels hands-on career learning at WDET  appeared first on WDET 101.9 FM.

Michigan lawmakers warn Trump against striking Chinese EV deal

13 May 2026 at 19:30

President Trump is visiting Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week. Michigan lawmakers are warning him against agreeing to any deals that would allow Chinese electric vehicles into the U.S.

While they are not currently available in the states, President Trump suggested he may be open to allowing them during a visit to the Detroit Economic Club earlier this year. The EVs have become popular, low-cost sellers in Europe and are now available in Canada and Mexico.

Legislation has been introduced in Washington to ban sale of the vehicles. That includes a bill co-sponsored by Democratic Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin and Ohio Republican Bernie Moreno.

Slotkin argues that having those models on U.S. roads driving near military bases and civilian infrastructure could be a security risk.

“Taking all that data, all that video, all that mapping and sending that back,” says Slotkin. “As someone who’s from the Pentagon, that is the exact detailed information an adversarial nation loves to have in their war planning.”

While Slotkin acknowledges that major tech companies, such as Google, are already collecting people’s data, she argues those companies must follow U.S. laws when handling that information.

A Seagull electric vehicle from Chinese automaker BYD for test driving is parked outside a showroom in Beijing, Wednesday, April 10, 2024.
A Seagull electric vehicle from Chinese automaker BYD for test driving is parked outside a showroom in Beijing, Wednesday, April 10, 2024.

Another concern is the impact it could have on American manufacturers, who would stand to lose out on sales.

Republican John Moolenaar represents Michigan’s 2nd Congressional District. He warns that one of the factors keeping Chinese vehicle prices down are unethical labor practices in the country.

“Chinese companies use slave labor to undercut the fair wages of hard-working Americans,” says Moolenaar.

Lawmakers say the U.S. can’t compete with the way the Chinese government subsidizes their auto industry. They argue that creates artificially low pricing for Chinese products that  American companies can’t compete with.

Trusted, accurate, up-to-date.

WDET strives to make our journalism accessible to everyone. As a public media institution, we maintain our journalistic integrity through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.

Donate today »

The post Michigan lawmakers warn Trump against striking Chinese EV deal appeared first on WDET 101.9 FM.

The Metro: This trucking company owner worries about price hikes — but not the war causing them

By: Sam Corey
6 May 2026 at 19:27

High fuel costs are impacting everyone. One industry is being hit particularly hard. 

Truckers are seeing costs skyrocket as diesel costs have risen 41% since the start of America and Israel’s wars with Iran. 

Jim Burg is the President of the James Burg Trucking Company in Warren. He’s been moving steel in the trucking business for decades. While he says costs are rising really fast, at this point, he’s only been modestly impacted by them.

Jim Burg is the owner of a trucking company in Warren.

He talks about how he made his start in trucking and what he envisions for the future of the business with The Metro’s Sam Corey.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.

Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Support the podcasts you love.

One-of-a-kind podcasts from WDET bring you engaging conversations, news you need to know and stories you love to hear. Keep the conversations coming. Please make a gift today.

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The Metro: Running near empty. How gas prices are hurting local businesses

5 May 2026 at 14:06

A month ago, gas in Michigan was just under $4 a gallon, and small business owners were already making changes to brace for what was coming.

In the month since, the average price has climbed to nearly five dollars, with some Michigan stations already past it. The squeeze that was just beginning a month ago has settled in. The U.S. and Israel’s war with Iran is in its third month, the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, and Midwest refineries are down.

For the small businesses that anchor metro Detroit, this is one more strain on top of an already heavy stack. Corner stores and landscapers are absorbing higher fuel costs to stay competitive. Restaurants are closing, and analysts say rising gas prices and declining consumer confidence are likely to accelerate the trend.

All of this comes after months of tariffs, rising healthcare premiums, and an unsettled workforce.

Mark Lee runs The Lee Group, where he consults with small businesses across Southeast Michigan. He spoke with Robyn Vincent on The Metro about what another month of pain at the pump is doing to the businesses he advises. Lee is also hosting his 12th annual Small Business Workshop on May 13 at the Corner Ballpark in Detroit — a free, half-day event for local entrepreneurs and business owners navigating exactly this kind of pressure.

Hear the full conversation using the media player above.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.

Subscribe to The Metro on Apple PodcastsSpotifyNPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Support local journalism.

WDET strives to cover what’s happening in your community. As a public media institution, we maintain our ability to explore the music and culture of our region through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.

More stories from The Metro

The post The Metro: Running near empty. How gas prices are hurting local businesses appeared first on WDET 101.9 FM.

GOP governor candidate Tom Leonard says Michigan needs a Detroit Lions-esque turnaround

13 April 2026 at 21:17

Michigan elects a new governor this year and WDET is talking to the candidates vying to replace term-limited Democrat Gretchen Whitmer.

One of those in the crowded Republican field for governor is former Michigan Speaker of the House Tom Leonard. He wants to lower taxes and reduce government spending.

But Leonard says he’s also running to protect the future for Michigan’s children, including his own kids.

Listen: GOP governor candidate Tom Leonard speaks with WDET’s Quinn Klinefelter

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Tom Leonard: There’s three very simple reasons why I’m doing this. And those are Hannah, Thomas, and Danny. That’s our nine-year-old, our six-year-old, and our now 20-month-old.

When you look at the state of our state right now, the unemployment, the lack of income growth, a quarter of our population right now suffers from some type of mental health issue. Half of them are not getting treatment. The list goes on.

We are doing this because the last thing that we want is for one of our kids to come to us in the next 15-20 years and say, “Dad, we’d love to stay in the greatest state in the country. But unfortunately we have to leave because there’s no opportunity for us here in Michigan.” That’s why we’re doing this.

Education serves as a foundation

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: If you were elected governor, how would you try to address some of that?

TL: There are so many things that we have got to get done to turn this state around. One of the biggest issues that I’m focused on right now is education. Fourth graders right now in this state cannot read at a proficient level. Quinn, that is our foundation, that is our base. And I can tell you as a former prosecutor, if somebody has to drop out of school because they’re illiterate, you have created a pipeline to a welfare check or a prison cell.

I believe we need to make Michigan a right-to-work state again. Growth states in this country are right-to-work states. I believe we need to phase out the income tax.

I hear many of these candidates out there gaslighting people across the state, saying that they’re going to eliminate the state income tax on day one. That’s despite the fact that the legislature isn’t even sworn in until nearly two weeks after the governor comes into office.

I would say look at my past track record and my history. That’s what we did when I was speaker. And when I’m the state’s next governor that’s exactly what we’re going to do. We’re going to get these big-ticket items across the finish line.

Mental health crisis

QK: You mentioned education. What other issues do you think are vitally important at the moment to Michigan?

TL: I seem to be the one candidate out there right now that’s talking about this mental health crisis. As I said, a quarter of our population suffers from some type of mental health issue. Half of them are not getting treatment.

I believe it starts with ending the stigma that comes attached when somebody is diagnosed with a mental health issue. Think about this for a moment. If you or somebody is diagnosed with something physically, what do they typically do? They go to their friends, they go to their family, they go to their place of worship, they ask for prayer, they start treatment.

Sadly, when people are diagnosed with a mental health issue, they are scared. They don’t know what to do. We’ve got to end the stigma that comes attached.

Energy policy reform

TL: Energy costs. This is a big one right now as I travel the state. I’m hearing more and more of people that can no longer afford their electricity bills. Frankly, we’ve got a broken system. We’ve got a Michigan Public Service Commission that no longer works for the people of this state. They work for two monopoly utilities. They sign off on every single rate increase that they ask for.

Enough is enough. We are the one campaign that has put forth a plan to not only bring choice and competition to the state and the utility monopolies, but also shake up the Michigan Public Service Commission.

Right now those regulators, who dictate our rates, are three unelected bureaucrats appointed by the governor. That is way too much power given to the governor. The governor should never control those appointments. Our plan calls for increasing the Michigan Public Service Commission from three to five members, only giving the governor two appointments.

The other appointments would be made by the attorney general, the speaker of the Michigan house and the senate majority leader. These are the types of bold solutions we are putting on the table to address the problems that the people of this state are facing.

Data centers feed into energy problems

QK: There’s been concerns raised by some people about the possibility of rate increases and energy or water problems from the advent of data centers across the state. From some of your past statements, it sounds like you’re not exactly a fan of data centers.

TL: The one being proposed right now that’s being built in Saline Township is 1.4 gigawatts. That is equivalent to the energy used by a million homes. There’s now one being proposed in Van Buren that’s nearly double that, with energy use equal to 2 million homes. Quinn, there are only 4.5 million homes in this entire state. Two industrial-sized data centers alone that they’re proposing would equal the energy for 3 million homes.

I don’t want these things driving-up our energy rates. We need to end the tax subsidies that come attached with these things.

The legislature a couple years ago passed legislation to give tens of millions of dollars to these big tech data centers. They should not be taking money out of our pockets and putting it in the hands of big tech to go out and buy up our farmland. So, end the subsidies.

We need to ban the use of non-disclosure agreements. You’ve got these local governments that are signing these NDA’s. The local citizens have no idea who’s going to be built in their area. They have no idea who’s going to be running these data centers.

These data centers do not create long-term jobs. Yet there is the risk that they are going to drive up our energy rates. And every time I push back on this energy issue, people say, “Well, they’re going to be regulated.” And then I ask the question, “Who’s going to regulate them?” “The Michigan Public Service Commission.” And I say, “So the same three regulators that have given us some of the highest electricity rates in the country, the same three regulators that refuse to tell DTE Energy and Consumers Energy ‘No,’ we are now going to allow to regulate these data centers?” I don’t think so.

I fear that they’re going to drive up our rates. We’ve already got the highest rates in the Midwest and some of the highest in the country. We cannot afford to pay more on our electricity bills.

What to do about political division

QK: It’s no secret how politically divided not only lawmakers but the country and the state as a whole are nowadays. Do you think it’s possible that anyone who would be governor will be able to bring people together at this point in time? Or is it just simply a matter of, “We’ve got to go forward with our policies and hope the other side comes along at some point?”

TL: I believe Democrats gave Republicans a playbook two years ago for what happens when you wake up every day and you have no vision and your only focus is hatred of one person. You lose. And I believe, as a Republican, if Republicans wake up every day and their only focus is hatred of Democrats, they will lose.

They’ve got to put forth a vision. That’s why every single day I’m focused on tackling problems, not people. I’m going to stay bold in my convictions, I’m a strong conservative. I don’t shy away from that. But there is nothing wrong with working across the aisle when it comes to accomplishing things for our state. We’ve actually labeled it the “Dan Campbell” approach.

You may recall when Coach Campbell became the coach of the Lions and he stood on that stage at the first press conference. He didn’t focus on six decades of failure. He didn’t cast blame. He didn’t point the finger. He just simply said, “We’ve got a problem here. And with a lot of grit, a lot of determination, working together with a positive vision every single day, we’re going to turn this program around.”

If Coach Campbell was able to turn the absolute worst sports franchise in the history of all mankind around with that type of vision, we can do the same thing for this state.

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Detroit Evening Report: Temporary Protected Status for Yemenis ends next week

6 April 2026 at 19:42

Yemeni nationals living in the United States who have Temporary Protected Status (TPS) have until April 13 to self deport or seek other legal residency through asylum or work visas.

In February the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem—who was fired last week—announced the end of TPS for Yemen.

The designation was first granted in September 2015 due to war in the country. Noem said conditions have improved, no longer warranting TPS. About 1,400 Yemeni nationals had TPS status as of last year according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. 

People who wish to self deport are encouraged to use the Customs and Border Protection CBP Home app to report their departure. That includes a complimentary plane ticket and $2,600.

People who do not leave or find alternative legal residency could be deported and banned from future immigration to the U.S.  

Additional headlines from Monday, April 6, 2026

Detroit Ride to Rise

Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield launched the Ride to Rise program Monday. It allows all students living in Detroit to ride city buses for free. 

The program is aimed at reducing absenteeism, as well as providing transportation for students to get to after school activities such as tutoring, enrichment programs, and more. 

Sheffield says the program also brings more money back to the district. 

“It’s about $700,000 a year that they currently spend on bus fare for students. Bus passes, that money, again, will be redirected back into the school system. The school board and the superintendent will decide what…they use that money for,” she says. “We have been advocating for it to go back to after school programming.” 

The 6-month pilot allows any student to show their school ID to get on a D-DOT bus for free. That includes students who attend charter, private, and other city schools.  

-Reporting by Bre’Anna Tinsley 

Pay gap widens

A new report shows Michigan’s gender pay gap widened in 2024. Women who worked full-time earned 79 cents for every dollar a man earned. That’s three cents less than the year before, as men’s wages grew faster. 

Sarah Javaid from the National Women’s Law Center lists other factors.  

“The bigger picture is that women are being impacted by caregiving duties, they’re impacted by state policies. Unpaid leave paid sick time. They’re impacted by what education and training they can receive, and they’re also impacted even way earlier than they enter the workforce.”

Javaid says supporting childcare, banning employers from asking about salary history, and increasing education access would help close the gender pay gap.  

-Reporting by Colin Jackson   

Michigan job data

Last year’s partial federal government shutdown made it hard for Michigan to collect statewide job data. The state’s last unemployment rate was 5% in January. Michigan lost jobs last year as more people left the workforce. 

The revised annual report shows unemployment remained essentially flat last year. Michigan showed a net loss of about 2,300 hundred jobs.

The Michigan Bureau of Labor Market Information Director Wayne Rourke says Michigan’s workforce declined by 1.6% percent over the course of 2025. He says that’s largely due to older people retiring and exiting the workforce.

The new monthly federal jobs report for March showed the nation added jobs last month and the unemployment rate ticked down.  

-Reporting by Rick Pluta   

Arab American Heritage Month

Governor Gretchen Whitmer declared April as Arab American and Chaldean-American Heritage Month.

Dearborn, Michigan is home to the largest concentration of Arab Americans per capita in the U.S.  

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The Metro: People aren’t happy with the economy, but spending is still high. Here’s why.

By: Sam Corey
6 April 2026 at 18:23

Since 2015, consumer confidence in the economy has plummeted according to recent consumer survey data by the University of Michigan. But while confidence has declined, spending has remained strong. Why? And, how have rising gas prices factored into the economy?

Professor Joanne Hsu is the director of the monthly Surveys of Consumers at the University of Michigan. She spoke with The Metro’s Sam Corey.

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The Metro: Ford, GM and Stellantis retreated from EVs. Now more drivers want them

By: Sam Corey
6 April 2026 at 18:00

Automakers and auto suppliers are a huge part of metro Detroit’s economy. And they will likely have to change as the war unfolds. 

As America’s strikes against Iran continue, and the Strait of Hormuz remains in question, gas prices are rising, and more people are thinking about purchasing an electric vehicle

But despite interest, how much will EV sales actually increase for companies like Ford, GM and Stellantis — especially as car sales in general have plummeted over the past few decades?

John McElroy is an automotive analyst with Autoline. He spoke with The Metro‘s Robyn Vincent.

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The Metro: The only certainty is chaos for small businesses in metro Detroit

By: Sam Corey
6 April 2026 at 17:17

The economy has undergone many drastic changes over the years. If you’re a millennial, change and chaos have been commonplace.

The Great Recession hit in the late aughts, reducing wealth. About ten years later, the pandemic occurred, causing many to stay at home and others to risk their health at work. Inflation deepened during President Joe Biden’s time in office. President Trump enacted tariffs. And now, the U.S. and Israel are at war with Iran. 

It’s hard to gauge all the consequences of this latest shock, but it’s a continuation of one thing: uncertainty. 

Rising gas prices and supply chain disruptions are now among the challenges small businesses must navigate. It might be why over half of small businesses owners in Michigan say they’re making operational changes to prepare for a recession, according to a recent survey. 

Which small businesses are hit hardest by the war in Iran and its disruptions? And, what could make them more resilient in the face of chaos?

Mark Lee is the president and CEO of The Lee Group, where he consults with small businesses across Southeast Michigan. He spoke with The Metro‘s Robyn Vincent.

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Breweries adapt to changing drinking and health habits or face closures

28 February 2026 at 10:03

Matthew Nix had driven past the brewery in Sauganash for years, but — not much of a weekday drinker — had never stopped in.

When he finally decided to meet friends at the taproom on a recent Saturday to play some cards, he found bartenders dancing on countertops, dogs wearing sweaters and the last of the beer draining from the tap. It was the farewell party for Alarmist Brewing.

“This is my first time here, first and obviously last,” said Nix, 36, a high school teacher living in the Edgewater neighborhood, about the closure.

In Illinois and across the country, breweries have been struggling as consumers seek healthier drinking habits or have a wider range of options, such as THC-infused drinks, as business costs continue to rise. Many have closed their doors, while others have redefined its meaning as a social space that offers beverage variety and events.

In Chicago alone, a handful of breweries have closed or consolidated in recent years, including Metropolitan Brewing, Revolution Brewing Brewpub and Lo Rez Brewing and Taproom

The number of U.S breweries closing outpaced those that opened for the second year in a row in 2025 for a net loss of 179 last year, according to preliminary 2025 data from Brewers Association, a trade group for small American brewers.

It stands in stark contrast from a decade ago — a golden age — for craft brewers when the number of breweries opening was about 10 times higher than those closing, according to Matt Gacioch, staff economist at Brewers Association.

One industry challenge is that Americans are now drinking less. A 2025 Gallup poll showed that only 54% of U.S. adults said they consume alcohol — the lowest percentage in 90 years. 

Figures are even lower among young adults with only 50% reporting that they drink alcohol. These numbers fall in line with healthier drinking trends like “sober curious” and “Dry January,” which seek mindful and moderate drinking.

On top of drinking less, consumers are also seeking wider beverage options from nonalcoholic drinks to hard seltzers, which adds pressure for traditional craft breweries specializing in beer.

Sports and music arena United Center is expected to start selling THC-infused drinks Señorita and Rythm at its stands this month — apparently the largest U.S. arena to do so. 

“Bringing Señorita and Rythm to the United Center reflects a simple truth: Consumers want nonalcoholic options, and leading venues are responding,” Ben Kovler, Rythm, Inc. chairman and interim CEO, said in a statement last month.

Other music venues that sell cannabis-derived drinks are the Salt Shed, Riviera, Ramova Theatre and Thalia Hall, taking up coveted beverage shelf space.

“There’s just so much more competition in terms of consumer attention and physical retail space,” Gacioch said. “There’s this whole world of other options.” 

Rising business expenses and the cost of goods like aluminum have also contributed to the strain, particularly after the pandemic.

“You have the increased cost of just about everything,” said Andrew Heritage, chief economist at the Beer Institute, noting the increase in operating costs, rent and labor. 

Some Chicago breweries were unable to recover, with Lo Rez Brewing in the Pilsen neighborhood closing its doors in 2023 in what cofounder Dave Dahl called a “pandemic casualty.” Another staple in the craft industry, Metropolitan Brewing, one of Chicago’s oldest, closed in 2023 after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Most recently, award-winning Alarmist Brewing closed on Feb. 1 after years of struggling with falling business after the pandemic.

“The bottom line is we’re just not selling,” said Alarmist owner Gary Gulley. “It just never recovered since COVID.”

Alarmist Brewing owner Gary Gulley, center, receives a hug from Keith Willert at the Sauganash neighborhood brewery and taproom in Chicago, Jan. 31, 2026. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune)
Alarmist Brewing owner Gary Gulley, center, receives a hug from Keith Willert at the Sauganash neighborhood brewery and taproom in Chicago, Jan. 31, 2026. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune)

Illinois lost over 30 breweries in two years after 2020, falling to 218 total breweries, according to data from the Beer Institute. By 2024, the number of Illinois breweries rebounded to 251.

Some breweries have adapted to create third spaces, a place to mingle and play trivia with friends — and pups.

“I like a place where you can bring your dog, you can bring a book,” Nix said, likening these breweries to social spaces where you can play card games. 

One brewery that has been bolstering events and activities is Maplewood Brewery and Distillery in the Logan Square neighborhood. The decade-old brewery holds events like its upcoming Pulaski Day Party to celebrate its Pulaski pilsner, trivia nights and beer festivals to cultivate brand loyalty.

“We have our core brand that we make, but we’re always coming out with something new and fun … that’s helped us out,” said Paul Megalis, co-owner and CFO of Maplewood Brewery.

Their expansive beverage options include ready-to-drink rum punch cocktails, in-house coffee liqueurs for espresso martini lovers and seasonal beer concoctions. 

“We’ve essentially been a beverage company since Day 1, and so we’ve always had a diversified portfolio. I mean, we just hustle,” Megalis said.

They plan to open a second location in Glen Ellyn slated for this spring.

Despite the changing tides in the craft beer business, experts believe craft breweries are evolving not disappearing.

“Craft beer industry is nothing if not creative,” Gacioch said.

A woman drinks a beer in a packed taproom at Alarmist Brewing, in Chicago’s Sauganash neighborhood on Jan. 31, 2026. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune)

Supervisor jobs are disappearing across the country. What happened?

22 February 2026 at 10:59

By Andrew Van DamThe Washington Post

Around Y2K, the mighty American private sector hit a momentous milestone. For the first time on record, frontline managers – supervisors, team leads, foremen, forewomen, etc. – outnumbered back-office managers.

That seemed significant, especially for the working-class folks for whom these noncommissioned-officer-style positions provided a rare path to the upper reaches of the career ladder. As quickly as the milestone was crossed, the trend reversed, according to our analysis of about 37 million responses to the census and American Community Survey from 1950 to 2024.

Once ascendant, supervisory jobs crop up all over our lists of the hardest-hit jobs of Americans’ working lives, even as white-collar management soars to new highs. What happened?

Having been burned by data-collection changes before, our first instinct was to take a long, hard look at how the Census Bureau classifies jobs. Or, more accurately, to spend 15 seconds emailing an extraordinarily talented economist and hoping they’ve already done the work for us.

We were in luck. Utrecht University economist Anna Salomons responded within an hour, even though the hour in question was already a wee one in the Netherlands. For her blockbuster 2024 analysis, Salomons and her collaborators collected and analyzed detailed Census Bureau job descriptions from 1930 to 2018 to figure out how our economy had evolved, mutated and automated.

She first mentioned that the change in occupational definitions around the 2000 Census was “notoriously large” and, like us, wondered if that might cause some of the shift we saw in the numbers.

But two factors argue against that thesis. First, as Salomons suggested, we’re using a system from our friends at IPUMS that carefully adjusts for all those changes in the raw census definitions.

Second, the changes come gradually after the inflection point – if a census definition change was the culprit, you’d expect a sudden swerve. But what if, Salomons suggested, those changes in definition took place outside of the friendly confines of the Census Bureau?

Specifically, she suggested we look at title inflation, which immediately blew the case wide open. Or at least blew it ajar.

It seems quite possible that, over the past few decades, jobs that were once called some variation on “supervisor” were now called some variation on “manager.”

A fancier title (and no change in pay) may, at least temporarily, fool a worker who’d been angling for a raise or promotion. But could it really fool the almighty Census Bureau?

We fear the answer must be “probably.” The American Community Survey’s superpower – that it hears directly from about 2 million U.S. households each year – is also, in this case, its Achilles’ heel. Because it must rely on what those households say.

The census crew does its utmost to elicit clean answers, but even the most carefully designed questions would struggle to distinguish a manager from a “manager.”

The survey asks not just for your occupation but also for your most important work activities or duties. That detail, plus answers to other questions throughout the survey, such as education level, give the clerks at the National Processing Center – and the government robot that handles the easiest cases – as much information as possible when they’re determining which job a respondent really performed.

But not everybody fills out those activities. And not every manager-in-name-only will provide enough information to reclassify them as a supervisor or even as an individual contributor. So, a certain percentage of inflated titles will slip through.

But that would mean census surveys still reflect a real trend toward title inflation. And why are titles inflating? Based on a lifetime of observation, we’d guess some of corporate America’s brightest minds have noticed that a title upgrade allows you to give a worker a “promotion” without a change in responsibility – or in pay.

Particularly crafty economists may even have found a way to measure one narrow instance of this. Salomons points to an analysis forthcoming in the Review of Financial Studies. In it, economists analyzed about 450,000 online job postings with salaries near the cutoff that makes you eligible for management under the Fair Labor Standards Act. (The postings came from 2010 to 2018, when the cutoff was $455 a week. It currently sits at $684.)

The authors – Lauren Cohen at Harvard University, and Umit Gurun and Bugra Ozel at the University of Texas at Dallas – found that jobs paying just above the legal cutoff are about five times more likely to have managerial titles than are similar jobs with pay just below it.

Why? Well, even a dubious title such as calling a barber a “grooming manager” or a front-desk clerk a “director of first impressions” could provide cover for employers looking to claim that person is exempt from overtime pay. The economists estimate such spurious classifications save employers about 13.5 percent on the pay of each “manager.”

To be sure, as Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, told us, the definition for overtime-exempt employees says nothing about titles – it’s purely about job function. Faux-promoting a worker to “manager” shouldn’t change anything. But in reality, she said, bosses often use these titles as a smoke screen.

“Titles can still matter a lot in practice,” Ozel said. “A ‘manager’ label can shape expectations about whether overtime is available and can muddy the record for anyone trying to assess the role from the outside. … Job duties are hard to observe and document without access to internal records and day-to-day work.”

But this dynamic, while suggestive, applies only to a narrow slice of the workforce. In any given year, less than a tenth of the workforce earned enough to put them within fudging distance (20 percent) of the cutoff.

What else might drive this title inflation?

Our best clue came in a call from Nicholas Bloom, a Stanford University management expert who longtime readers may recognize is also a remote-work data impresario.

Bloom pointed out the rise of managers coincides with what he calls the overeducation of the American workforce. College graduates once made up a tiny, elite minority. Now, America’s colleges churn out so many that they outnumber the share of young people who never made it past high school.

As a result, Bloom said, there aren’t enough highfalutin’ positions for all those brand-new baccalaureates. Of course, employers would still love to attract these talented young grads to their unfilled lower-falutin’ positions. But to do so, they’d need to get creative.

“How do you get a college graduate to do a job that’s honestly probably better suited to a noncollege graduate?” Bloom asked. “You just shove the word ‘president’ into the title!”

When we took Bloom’s hint and charted the rise in managers by education, the fallout of his observation became clear. The increase in managers with a bachelor’s degree or higher drowns out any other trend. If we explain that segment, we explain the whole thing.

We started by looking at where all those college-educated managers worked.

As we should have guessed, they’re in the industries with the most-educated workers overall. In almost every major industry, as more educated workers roll in, the number of educated managers rises at the same rate.

Let’s look at an appropriate example: the industry of higher education. In that business, a four-year degree (or something fancier) gave you almost a 5 percent chance of being in management in 2000. By 2024, the share of educated workers in that sector had more than doubled, but your chances of being a manager conditional on having a college degree didn’t really change.

Many industries – banking, real estate, hospitals – follow this pattern. The exception? Computer services, which added more jobs than all but a handful of (mostly low-wage) industries over this time period, also saw your odds of becoming a manager double.

That matches what we heard from Ben Hanowell, an anthropologist who now helps direct ADP Research, the research arm of the outfit that probably processes your paycheck each month. The company’s endless piles of proprietary payrolls allow Hanowell to produce metrics that us mere civilians can’t match.

In his analysis, Hanowell found that U.S. teams got slightly smaller after the pandemic – an average manager went from 7.4 direct reports to about 7.3. But over that time, tech firms have gone from 6.5 workers per manager to about 5.3, with much of the drop coming after the pandemic.

So, while there are some situations where individuals became more likely to be managers, the much more common story is: People with college degrees had the same odds of becoming a manager as they always did, so as we got more people with college degrees, we got more managers.

But are these Potemkin promotions, or do they signal a change in the economy?

It hinges on whether the new boss, the “manager,” is truly the same as the old boss, the “supervisor.” We don’t have enough data right now to compare their actual duties, but we can at least look at their pay.

And sure enough, when we compare managers to similarly paid supervisors since the turn of the millennium, a clean pattern pops out. At every step of pay scale, managers rose, and supervisors fell in roughly equal quantities (after accounting for workforce growth over that time). To us, that looks a lot like replacement.

To be sure, they may not all be simple swaps in which a firm hires a college graduate to be a glorified supervisor with a cool title. We could also be seeing centralization. Perhaps work that once fell to supervisors – say, scheduling or coaching – now shifts to a central, college-educated staff of trainers and human resources professionals.

Around the edges, we expect those trends have been exacerbated by the decline of small businesses, since a megacorp in search of efficiency will centralize more functions. Similarly, the rise of outsourcing and perhaps gig work means jobs that were once done by small teams with supervisors inside the company are now handled by huge outside contractors.

And of course the increasing reliance on gig workers and outsourced workers that such a model implies might also help explain why tech’s managers now seem to manage so few employees – many of the folks they’re managing are now working outside the company.

But experts like Shierholz confirmed our hunch that the dominant force seemed to be the simplest: Job titles are getting a college-friendly makeover even if the jobs themselves don’t change much. Cory Stahle, senior economist at Indeed, agreed this seemed plausible based on his impressions from the online job site’s vast archives of job postings.

“We’re seeing a lot of jobs that have manager in them, but they are doing these more direct manager or direct supervising type of jobs,” Stahle said. “They are managers who are more directly involved in the day-to-day operations rather than a higher-up.”

Hiring sign is displayed at a grocery store in Arlington Heights, Ill., Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

What to know about student loan repayment plans and collections

10 February 2026 at 17:22

By ADRIANA MORGA The Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — It’s been a confusing time for people with student loans. Collections restarted, then were put on hold. At the same time, borrowers had to stay on top of changes to key forgiveness plans.

Last year, the long-contested SAVE plan introduced by the Biden administration ended with a settlement agreement. President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” introduced new borrowing limits for graduates and raised challenges to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. While several changes for student loan borrowers will take effect this summer, other key questions remain unresolved.

More than 5 million Americans were in default on their federal student loans as of September, according to the Education Department. Millions are behind on loan payments and at risk of default this year.

Borrowers “genuinely struggle to afford their loans and then to hear that the administration is making it more expensive and taking away some of the tools and resources that help folks afford their loans is really, it’s panic-inducing,” said Winston Berkman-Breen, legal director at Protect Borrowers.

Last month, the Education Department announced that it would delay involuntary collections for student loan borrowers in default until the department finalizes its new loan repayment plans. The date for this is still unclear.

If you’re a student loan borrower, here are some key things to know:

If you were enrolled in the SAVE plan

The SAVE plan was a repayment plan with some of the most lenient terms ever. Soon after its launch it was challenged in court, leaving millions of student loan borrowers in limbo. Last December, the Education Department announced a settlement agreement to end the SAVE plan. What is next for borrowers who were enrolled in this repayment plan is yet to be determined.

“Seven and a half million borrowers who are currently enrolled in SAVE need to be moved to another plan,” Berkman-Breen said.

As part of the agreement, the Education Department says it will not enroll new borrowers, deny pending applications, and will move all current SAVE borrowers into other repayment plans.

The Education Department is expected to develop a plan for borrowers to transition from the SAVE plan, yet borrowers should be proactive about enrolling in other repayment plans, said Kate Wood, a lending expert at NerdWallet.

If you are looking to enroll in an income-driven repayment plan

Borrowers can apply for the following income-driven plans: the Income-Based Repayment Plan, the Pay as You Earn plan, and the Income-Contingent Repayment plan.

“They all have similar criteria, and they function similarly. Your payment is set as a percentage of your income, not how much you owe, so it’s usually a lower payment,” Berkman-Breen said.

The payment amount under income-driven plans is a percentage of your discretionary income, and the percentage varies depending on the plan. Since many people are looking to switch plans, some applications to income-driven repayment plans might take longer to process, said Jill Desjean, director of policy analysis at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.

You can find out which repayment plan might work best for you by logging on to the Education Department’s loan simulator.

If you’re working toward your Public Service Loan Forgiveness

There are no changes to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program yet. Last year, the Trump administration announced plans to change the eligibility requirements for participating nonprofits.

The policy seeks to disqualify nonprofit workers if their work is deemed to have “substantial illegal purpose.” The Trump administration said it’s necessary to block taxpayer money from lawbreakers, while critics say it turns the program into a tool of political retribution.

The proposal says illegal activity includes the trafficking or “chemical castration” of children, illegal immigration, and supporting foreign terrorist organizations. This move could cut off some teachers, doctors, and other public workers from federal loan cancellation.

“This is something that obviously is very stressful, very nerve-wracking for a lot of people, but given that we don’t know exactly how this is going to be enforced, how these terms are going to be defined, it’s not really something that you can try to plan ahead for now,” Wood said.

While this policy is currently being challenged by 20 Democrat-led states, it’s expected to take effect in July. In the meantime, Wood recommends that borrowers enrolled in the PSLF program continue making payments.

If your student loans are in default

Involuntary collections on federal student loans will remain on hold. The Trump administration announced earlier this month that it is delaying plans to withhold pay from student loan borrowers who default on their payments.

Federal student loan borrowers can have their wages garnished and their federal tax refunds withheld if they default on their loans. Borrowers are considered in default when they are at least 270 days behind on payments.

If your student loans are in default, you can contact your loan holder to apply for a loan rehabilitation program.

“They essentially come up with a payment plan where you’re making a reduced payment,” Woods. “After five successful payments on that rehabilitation plan, wage garnishment will cease.”

If you’re planning to attend graduate school

Trump’s “ Big Beautiful Bill ” has changed the amount graduate students can borrow from federal student loans. Graduate students could previously borrow loans up to the cost of their degree; the new rules cap the amount depending on whether the degree is considered a graduate or a professional program.

Wood said that if you’re starting a new program and taking out a loan after July 1, you will be subject to the new loan limits.

Under the new plan, students in professional programs would be able to borrow up to $50,000 per year and up to $200,000 in total. Other graduate students, such as those pursuing nursing and physical therapy, would be limited to $20,500 a year and up to $100,000 total.

The Education Department is defining the following fields as professional programs: pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, chiropractic, law, medicine, optometry, osteopathic medicine, podiatry and theology.

If you want to consolidate your loan

The online application for loan consolidation is available at studentaid.gov/loan-consolidation. If you have multiple federal student loans, you can combine them into a single loan with a fixed interest rate and a single monthly payment.

The consolidation process typically takes around 60 days to complete. You can only consolidate your loans once.

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The Associated Press receives support from Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism.

FILE – In this May 5, 2018, file photo, graduates at the University of Toledo commencement ceremony in Toledo, Ohio. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File)
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