That’s not something you hear much about from metro Detroit’s business leaders, who are more focused on taxes and other business climate issues. But working to improve inclusiveness could be even more important in metro Detroit, which is one of the most racially segregated places in the country. I’ll explain in a bit.

At first, the concern by metro Minneapolis business leaders for narrowing the gap in racial disparities surprised me. Most people in the Twin Cities are doing well. Median household income in metro Minneapolis in 2016 was $73,231, the seventh-highest among the 53 metro areas with a population of a million or more.

People of color work at a higher rate than in many U.S. metro areas. In 2016, 75 percent of minorities age 25 to 64 were employed—10 percentage points higher than in metro Detroit.

And metro Minneapolis, despite being more than 70 percent white, has a well-deserved reputation for being welcoming to everyone, including refugees, immigrants and LGBTQ people.

Still, there are significant economic, social and educational gaps between whites and people of color in the Twin Cities.

Nearly 47 percent of non-Hispanic whites in metro Minneapolis held bachelor’s degrees in 2016, compared to just 28.5 percent for people of color. Median income in households headed by whites was $79,600, compared to $50,000 for those headed by minorities. Twenty percent of minorities live below the federal poverty line, compared to just 5 percent of whites, according to the research group Minnesota Compass.

Business and community leaders told me they have a moral responsibility to work toward closing racial disparities. But there’s a clear economic imperative, as well.

Economic growth in the Twin Cities is expected to outpace the working-age population growth over the next 20 years or so, giving employers and policymakers pause over how they’re going to find enough workers to support that growth.

A 2017 forecast by the Metropolitan Council, a regional government agency, predicts metro Minneapolis’s working-age population will grow by 10.4 percent between 2020 and 2040. But the number of jobs in the metro area is expected to grow by 11.5 percent in the same period.

And metro Minneapolis is rapidly diversifying, meaning that employers will need to increasingly rely on people of color to fill those new jobs.

The Twin Cities metro is expected to add 211,000 new jobs between 2020 and 2040. But the number of non-Hispanic white residents age 25 to 64 is expected to decline by 137,000 in the same period.

At the same time, the working-age population of people of color is expected to grow by 325,000 between 2020 and 2040. Employers and policymakers must ensure those workers have the education and skills required to keep metro Minneapolis’s knowledge-based economy growing and vibrant.

“There are not a lot of good near-term solutions to growing our workforce,” said Peter Frosh, vice president of strategic partnerships at Greater MSP, a regional economic development group. “The best near-term solution we have is inclusion.

Policies promoting greater inclusion are even more important in metro Detroit, where there could be more jobs than people readily available to fill them.

An eye-opening 2017 population forecast for the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments predicts little growth in the region’s working-age population over the next several decades—just 1 percent between 2015 and 2045. Employment is expected to grow by 6.6 percent.

But even that minuscule working-age population growth doesn’t come until later in the forecast period. The population of 25-to-64-year-olds is expected to decline by 65,025 between 2017 and 2030, “making it increasingly difficult for employers to find workers,” according to the forecast prepared by University of Michigan economists George Fulton and Don Grimes.

If that forecast proves correct, employers and policymakers in metro Detroit will have no choice but to attract more local residents into the workforce. And the biggest opportunity to do that will be with people of color, who will comprise a larger share of the total population over the next several decades.

Metro Detroit’s white population is expected to decline by 45,170 by 2045, according to the SEMCOG forecast. But the number of blacks, who have traditionally have been marginalized here, is expected to increase by 96,923 in the same period.

The total minority population in metro Detroit is expected to grow by about 427,000 people by 2045, including Hispanics, Asians and others. But that number includes international migration, which could be severely curtailed by the Trump administration.

As noted earlier, only 65 percent of working-age minorities in metro Detroit are employed. Getting more of them connected to jobs will require a number of policy solutions, including improving education, job training and transit.

A comprehensive effort to promote greater inclusion of minorities in the workforce might be the most important economic development strategy metro Detroit business and community leaders could undertake.

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“I love the environment, and there are a ton of outdoor activities all year round,” he said about a metro area that celebrates its cold winters. “The city is really good about taking care of the streets and it’s easy to get around on public transit.”

Carrigan, 31, is far from alone in his assessment of the Twin Cities’ livability. Minneapolis and St. Paul regularly appear at or near the top of ‘best cities to live’ lists. Much of that is due to a demand by residents here for high quality parks and trails, a clean environment, cultural amenities—collectively known as placemaking– and a commitment to pay for them.

Talent and placemaking go hand in hand in metro Minneapolis. Local business and community leaders strongly believe that you can’t have a talented workforce if smart people don’t want to live in your community.

In 2008, voters passed an amendment to Minnesota’s constitution, known as the Legacy Funds, that raised the sales tax by three-eighths of 1 percent to protect the environment, support arts and culture, and fund parks and trail projects. The tax expires in 2034.

Legacy Funds money has helped the Metropolitan Council, the local regional government agency, award more than $625 million for parkland acquisition and development, and projects such as environmental education to local parks systems in metro Minneapolis.

Minneapolis and St. Paul for years have been recognized as having the best park systems among the 100 largest cities in the country by the Trust for Public Land, which helps cities create and finance parks. Minneapolis and St. Paul were ranked first and second, respectively, in by the organization in 2016 and 2017. Detroit ranked 75th in the 2017 study.

“You can’t have a great city without a great park system,” said Adrian Benepe, senior vice president of The Trust for Public Land.

Minneapolis and St. Paul also have aggressively been building miles of protected bike lanes on city streets and using their zoning powers to increase residential density, which many young people desire.

Metro Minneapolis also has one of the best transit systems, including light rail, in the country. Many see that as a crucial economic and placemaking investment.

“You don’t have to have a car to live here. In Michigan, it’s hard to get around anywhere if you don’t have a car,” said Marissa Luna, a 28-year-old Saginaw native who moved to Minneapolis last year. “Minnesota invests in public goods, which is really important to young people who have a lot of student loan debt. Buying things like cars is not feasible.”

In the Twin Cities, talent development has long been the key ingredient in growing a metro economy that is one of the most vibrant in the country.

“For us, it’s about a highly educated workforce that is well aligned with our industry sectors,” said Peter Frosch, vice president of strategic partnerships at Greater MSP, a regional economic development group formed in 2011 by the Itasca Project, a group of local business leaders.

Metro Minneapolis’s young adults are a brainy bunch, with 58.2 percent of those age 25 to 34 holding an associate degree or above in 2016. That was the ninth-highest percentage among the 53 largest metros in the country. The comparable percentages were 45.8 percent in metro Grand Rapids and 42.8 percent in metro Detroit.

The Twin Cities didn’t get smart overnight. Frosch described the effort as a mix of private and public sector efforts to create knowledge jobs and boost the educational level of its workforce.

“The demand from the economy was part of it,” Frosch said. “Industry here developed a lot of intensive knowledge work post-World War II, and that grew and grew and grew.”

Minnesota also started boosting education spending in the 1950s because of worries that that state was lagging in a variety of economic measures, including per capita income and gross domestic product.

“By 2000, we had one of the most educated workforces in the country,” said Art Rolnick, a former Minneapolis Federal Reserve economist who studied the state’s economy going back to 1920. “We argued that was causal to our strong economy.”

Local metro Minneapolis leaders aren’t taking the region’s strong economic performance for granted. Worried that the economy might outstrip its available workforce, they’re undertaking a variety of efforts to retain and recruit talent.

There’s a strong focus reducing economic and racial disparities. That’s in part because the region is becoming more diverse.

The portion of minorities age 25 to 64 in the Twin Cities region is expected to nearly double, from 22 percent of the total working-age population in 2010 to 43 percent by 2040, according to census data analyzed by the Itasca Project. The white working-age population is expected to decline.

In 2015, Greater MSP created “Make It. MSP.” bringing together 150 businesses and community and organizations to help welcome and acclimate newcomers, especially minorities, to the region.

“This has to be place where they can stay and thrive,” Frosch said.

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Median household income in the Twin Cities of $73,231 was the seventh highest among the 53 metro areas with a population of 1 million or more in 2016, according to American Community Survey figures. (Detroit ranked 38th and Grand Rapids 29th.)

Unemployment hasn’t reached double-digit levels in at least the past three decades. The highest annual jobless rate since 1990 in metro Minneapolis was 7.7 percent in 2009 at the depth of the national Great Recession. Just 2.7 percent of the Twin Cities’ workforce was unemployed in April 2018, the fifth-lowest jobless rate among the 50 largest metro areas in the country. (Metro Detroit, with a jobless rate of 3.6 percent, ranked 31st.)

Economists attribute much of the metro area’s economic vitality to its diverse mix of industries, including food processing, health care, medical device manufacturing and financial services, and to its highly educated workforce.

“It’s very clear that the quality of our workforce is a key element in our success,” said Art Rolnick, a senior fellow at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs and a former economist at the Minneapolis Federal Reserve. “It’s been a big payoff in this economy.”

A roster of highly educated, mostly home-grown workers and managers is a major reason why Minnesota hosts the largest number of Fortune 500 companies per capita in the country, said Myles Shaver, a management professor in the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management. And most don’t leave.

“Metro Minneapolis doesn’t attract people well,” he said, citing a climate he says many equate with the Arctic. “But it’s been able to build a strong workforce because it retains so many talented people. Retention rates here are extreme.”

Minnesota was home to 18 Fortune 500 companies in 2017, the most per capita of any state. All but one are located in metro Minneapolis. Paced by metro Minneapolis, the state’s largest metro area, Minnesota also has long ranked as one of the top knowledge economies in the country.

The Washington, D.C.-based Information Technology and Innovation Foundation ranked Minnesota 12th in its 2017 State New Economy Index, which uses 25 indicators to measure how well state economies are “knowledge-based, globalized, entrepreneurial, IT-driven, and innovation-oriented.” Michigan ranked 15th, up from 34th in 1999.

Its broadly educated workforce also has helped metro Minneapolis grow new industries as old ones fell away.

The Twin Cities became a center of supercomputing in the late 1950s. (The CDC 6600, introduced in 1964 by Control Data Corp. in suburban Minneapolis, is considered the world’s first supercomputer.) But as the computer industry gradually moved to west to Silicon Valley, local computing engineers, scientists and others shifted to the expanding medical device industry.

While the conventional wisdom is that low taxes are key to economic growth, metro Minneapolis—and the rest of the state—has taken the opposite approach.

Twin Cities’ residents and businesses pay some of the highest taxes in the country. Minnesota regularly ranks as among the worst states in the Tax Foundation’s Business Tax Climate Index, which includes corporate, personal income, sales, unemployment insurance and property taxes.

Minnesota ranks 46th in the Tax Foundation’s 2018 study in which a lower number indicates a better rank.

Gov. Mark Dayton and the then-Democratic controlled Legislature raised taxes on the wealthy in 2013, boosting the top individual rate in its progressive income tax system from 7.85 percent to 9.85 percent.

On top of high state taxes, Twin Cities’ residents pay additional special levies to support regional government (the Metropolitan Council), public transit and other amenities, such as parks.

Rolnick said he doesn’t think economic growth is necessarily predicated on low or high taxes. It’s how the money is spent.

“If you’re investing well, you get great infrastructure and great education,” he said. “That’s what you need for a thriving economy.”

The Twin Cities’ diverse economy is somewhat serendipitous. Companies in different industry sectors, such as General Mills, Target and United Healthcare, were born there. But none dominated the economy in the way the auto industry, which is subject to wild cyclical swings, did in Detroit.

Local experts say the key to maintaining that healthy diversity and the wealth it engenders is a continued focus on education and infrastructure.

Metro Detroit and the rest of Michigan could copy that formula for success if policymakers can muster the political will to do it.

Check our new report, Regional Collaboration Matters, How Metro Minneapolis has forged one of the wealthiest and most livable metropolitan regions in the United States, for more stories and lessons from the most successful state in the Great Lakes.

The post Education and infrastructure investments drive Twin Cities’ economy appeared first on Michigan Future Inc..

But the Itasca Project serving Minnesota’s Twin Cities is different from just about any such organization in the country. This group of more than 60 corporate chief executive officers and community leaders spend little time on traditional business concerns, such as tax rates and government regulations.

Instead, Itasca takes on more controversial and complex issues, such as how to bring more minorities—the Twin Cities are home to Hmong, Somali, Cambodian and other minority populations—into the economic mainstream.

“Our overall mission is to raise economic competitiveness, improve the quality of life and expand prosperity for everyone,” said Justin Freiberg, a McKinsey & Co. executive who manages the Itasca Project.

Itasca operates as a virtual organization with no physical presence or staff. It receives operational and research support from McKinsey, one of the top management-consulting firms in the world, and outside financial support from several local foundations.

The group’s ground-level work is conducted in weekly Friday morning meetings by about a dozen CEOs who “go deep” to understand problems, and propose solutions, Freiberg said.

Itasca operates largely behind the scenes, but exercises an outsize influence. Its members aren’t afraid to push for a tax increase to pay for improved infrastructure that makes Minneapolis-St. Paul, already considered one of the most vibrant metropolitan areas in country, even better.

It did just that in 2008 after then-Gov. Tim Pawlenty vetoed a tax hike to fund road repair and public transportation. Itasca’s business leaders called Republican legislators and convinced them to vote with Democrats in overriding the Republican governor’s veto.

Itasca also conducted a study in 2012 that found 70 percent of Minnesota’s jobs by 2018 will require education beyond high school and used the study to push lawmakers to increase higher education funding.

The organization describes itself as a business-executive-led group that demands consideration for  “all other perspectives” and takes a long-term view, “peering decades into the future rather than just the next legislative session.” It prioritizes “regional vitality over business self-interest” and is willing to “take on issues that are inherently difficult to resolve.”

The Itasca Project was created in 2003 in response to a growing worry by business leaders that the region was losing its economic vitality. Minnesota’s share of initial public offerings and venture capital was slipping, as was its reputation for being a strong research-and-development hub.

An attempt by then-University of Minnesota President Mark Yudof to create an organization of more than 1,200 community leaders to address those and other problems failed. Participants “barely agreed on the shape of the table let alone a path to revitalize our competitiveness,” according to an Itasca history.

Rip Rapson, then the president of the McKnight Foundation (he’s now the president of the Kresge Foundation in Troy), convened a breakfast meeting of a small group of business leaders “who by now were convinced that something had to be done,” according to the history.

What emerged was Itasca, which takes its name from the Minnesota state park where the region’s business leaders gathered in the 1950s and 1960s to discuss economic issues.

Today the organization is focused mostly on talent and transit issues. Business leaders in metro Minneapolis have been strong proponents of light rail, viewing it as a crucial element in meeting the transportation needs of workers and as well as economic development.

And they believe the region needs to close racial and economic disparity gaps for the metro area to continue to thrive.

“We’re a historically white state that’s growing slowly,” Freiberg said. “We have pools of potential talent we’re not fully utilizing. And there are systemic barriers excluding that talent.”

An Itasca task force brought together private sector and nonprofit leaders to identify specific, short-term steps employers can take to close employment gaps between whites and people of color. Itasca and the Wilder Foundation also are working with about 100 CEOs and senior corporate leaders to help them develop more diverse, inclusive workforces.

Population projections for the Twin Cities region show that the white working age population will decline over the next 20 years. All of the growth will come from people of color. Metro Detroit is facing a similar trend.

The Itasca Project is built on the belief that for metro Minneapolis to remain vibrant, its economy must work for everyone. That’s a mindset Michigan leaders must adopt.

Check our new report, Regional Collaboration Matters, How Metro Minneapolis has forged one of the wealthiest and most livable metropolitan regions in the United States, for more stories and lessons from the most successful state in the Great Lakes.

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But regional collaboration is on steroids in Minnesota’s Twin Cities, where a unique entity called the Metropolitan Council provides key services, including transit and wastewater treatment, for the seven-county metro area.

Another innovative regional program in metro Minneapolis, known as Fiscal Disparities, captures 40 percent of the annual increase in commercial, industrial and public utility tax bases in the region, and distributes it to nearly 200 taxing entities in the region.

The Met Council, as it’s known locally, and Fiscal Disparities are seen as national models of regional cooperation and key elements in making metro Minneapolis one of the most livable regions of the country.

Studies have shown that the Met Council has generally delivered services more efficiently and at a lower cost than local communities could do it on their own. And it has been a key driver in developing the metro area’s highly regarded public transit and regional park systems.

Fiscal Disparities is credited with reducing competition among local governments for development, helping less wealthy communities provide quality government services and allowing for better land-use planning.

“The program ensures that all residents enjoy a minimum standard of service for important local services, like public safety,” University of Minnesota professors Myron Orfield and Nicholas Wallace wrote in a 2007 study of Fiscal Disparities.

“By reducing the need for local governments to ‘steal’ revenue-generating land uses from each other, such policies allow them to engage in more thoughtful and beneficial land-use planning,” Orfield and Wallace wrote.

Regional planning agencies similar to the Met Council popped up across the country in the 1960s in response to the federal government’s requirement that planning be done on a regional basis in order to receive federal highway money.

But Minnesota political leaders decided to give the Met Council extraordinary powers in response to a critical need for better transit, improved wastewater treatment facilities and rapid growth that was gobbling up pristine natural areas many wanted to see preserved as parks and open space.

In 1967, Republican Gov. Harold LeVander signed legislation passed by the Republican-controlled Minnesota Legislature creating the Met Council.

In appointing the council’s first members, LeVander said the Met Council “was conceived with the idea that we will be faced with more and more problems that will pay no heed to the boundary lines which mark the end of one community in this metropolitan area and the beginning of another.”

The Met Council’s has 18 members, all appointed by the governor. None can be local elected government officials, an arrangement designed to head off parochial battles among local governments.

Over time, the Met Council took on responsibility for operating the regional sewer and transit systems, and administering federal low-income housing vouchers. It also has purchased tens of millions of dollars worth of parkland and open spaces for a regional park system, created in 1974, that now includes 53 parks and 340 miles of interconnected trails.

Fiscal Disparities grew out of concerns in the 1960s about widening disparities in local tax bases among various municipalities in the metro Minneapolis area.

A 1969 report by the Citizens League, entitled “Breaking the Tyranny of the Local Property Tax,” concluded that communities were paying widely different tax rates for a similar level of services. It also found that a growing number of communities with low tax bases were struggling to fund those services.

In response, the state Legislature in 1971 passed the Charles R. Weaver Metropolitan Revenue Distribution Act, named for a suburban Republican Minneapolis lawmaker who authored the law. It’s now known simply as Fiscal Disparities.

While Fiscal Disparities hasn’t eliminated the gap between communities with the highest and lowest commercial and industrial tax base, the program has greatly narrowed it.

In 2016, there was a 5-to-1 ratio between communities with the most and least commercial and industrial tax base per person. Without Fiscal Disparities, that ratio would have been 12 to 1, according to the Met Council.

“For the vast majority of  (metro Minneapolis communities), the sharing program has meant lower taxes and better services,” Bruce Katz and Elizabeth Kneebone of the Brookings Institution wrote in 2015.

Orfield, who has extensively studied Fiscal Disparities, acknowledged that regional cooperation “is not an easy proposition. But if a region is faced with growing educational and economic disparity, there are two viable options: either allow the disparity to deepen, or work to find solutions that can benefit all.”

Check our new report, Regional Collaboration Matters, How Metro Minneapolis has forged one of the wealthiest and most livable metropolitan regions in the United States, for more stories and lessons from the most successful state in the Great Lakes.

The post In Minneapolis, strong regional collaboration is key to success appeared first on Michigan Future Inc..

Minnesota takes a different view. It has created one of the strongest safety nets in the country, spending generously on benefits to help those who have lost jobs or been stricken by poverty get back on their feet.

That protective net has not trapped Minnesotans and turned them into a bunch of government-dependent slackers. Far from it.

Minnesota’s employment-to-population ratio of 67.2 percent in April was the fourth highest in the country, according to the latest data of the Brookings Institution’s Hamilton Project.

In Michigan, which has trimmed welfare and unemployment benefits, 56 percent of the adult population was working in April. Michigan ranked 41^st in that measure.

Minnesota’s jobless rate of 4.5 percent in June was the 10^th lowest in the country, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Michigan ranked 47^th with an unemployment rate of 7.5 percent.

In 2013, Minnesota spent $6.4 billion, or $1,134 per person, in state resources on health and human services. Michigan spent $6.1 billion, or $617 per capita on these services.

Minnesota spent $8,680 per person on public welfare for those below 200 percent of the federal poverty line, more than any other state except Alaska, according to a March 2013 study by the Center of the American Experiment, a conservative think tank in Minneapolis. Michigan spent just under $4,000 per person.

Lifetime cash assistance benefits are limited to 60 months in Minnesota, in line with federal law. Michigan trimmed its lifetime limit to 48 months in 2011.

But just 11.4 percent of Minnesotans were living in poverty in 2012, according to the Census Bureau. In Michigan, 17.4 percent of residents were living below their respective poverty levels.  The U.S. poverty rate was 15.9 percent in 2012.

Michigan and Minnesota have recently enacted higher minimum wages, but Michigan lawmakers did so mainly to head off a ballot proposal that would have boosted the state minimum wage to $10.10 an hour from $7.40 an hour.

Minnesota’s minimum wage will rise to $8.00 an hour on August 1. It will jump to $9.00 an hour on August 1, 2015 and $9.50 an hour on August1 1, 2016. It will be indexed to inflation starting in January 1, 2018.

The state has a lower minimum wage rate for small businesses with annual sales revenues of less than $625,000. That rate will for those employers will be $7.75 an hour on August 1, 2016.

Minnesota does not allow employers to take a tip credit. Employees must be paid at least the applicable minimum wage plus any tips received.

Michigan’s minimum wage is scheduled to rise to $8.15 an hour on September 1. It will rise in steps to $9.25 an hour on January 1, 2018 and will be indexed to inflation on January 1, 2019. The minimum wage for workers receiving tips will be 38 percent of the new minimum wage.

Minnesota also provides more generous jobless benefits than those offered in Michigan.

Jobless workers in Minnesota are entitled to a maximum state benefit of $610 a week for 26 weeks, nearly 70 percent above Michigan’s maximum weekly payment of $362.

In 2011, Michigan cut the time jobless workers can collect state benefits from 26 to 20 weeks in 2011, the fewest of any state at the time.

Since then, seven other states have cut the number of weeks jobless workers can collect unemployment benefits.

A new study by the Economic Policy Institute found that there has been no “visible improvement state labor market outcomes (specifically, the employment-to-population ratio of workers age 25 to 54)” in states that cut benefits.

Read #StatePoliciesMatter, Michigan Future’s latest report, here.

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It’s a state that embraces immigrants, sees same-sex marriage as a civil right and an economic benefit, and recently enacted groundbreaking legislation designed to improve conditions for women in the workplace.

Contrast those policies with Michigan, which is fighting to prevent the legalization of gay marriage, has a legislature that is viewed by many as hostile to women’s reproductive rights and has not enthusiastically embraced Gov. Rick Snyder’s call for attracting more educated immigrants.

Dane Smith, president of the progressive think tank Growth & Justice in St. Paul, attributes Minnesota’s welcoming attitude in part to its Scandinavian heritage, one that prizes tolerance and inclusion.

“Minnesotans have been subjected to but never bought completely into the conservative nostrum that welcoming polices and generous economic security benefits would invite a flood of shiftless or lazy people to our state,” he said.

“Rather, we have tended to believe that welcoming policies will actually make us more productive and profitable in the long run,” Smith said.

In 2013, Minnesota became the 13th state to legalize same-sex marriage. Then-Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak didn’t just put out a news release praising the move. He kept city hall open all night when the law took effect on midnight August 1 and performed 46 same-sex marriages throughout the night.

Rybak then traveled to several states where same-sex marriage was illegal to recruit gay couples to marry in Minneapolis, citing an economic opportunity for his state in hosting such weddings.

On his gay-marriage promotion tour, Rybak repeatedly cited a University California Los Angeles study that found Illinois could generate $103 million in new spending annually and $8.5 million in additional taxes by recognizing same-sex marriage. It took legal effect there in June.

Minnesota has welcomed tens of thousands of Somali refugees, the first of whom were brought there by Lutheran Social Services and other welfare agencies when civil war broke out in Somalia 1991.

Today, there are about 30,000 Somalis living in Minnesota, about 40 percent of all Somalis living in the United States. And the state is home to more than 60,000 Hmongs, an ethnic minority in Southeast Asia.

Experts say the Somalis and Hmongs are benefiting from a variety of social and educational services in Minnesota that help them thrive.

Among Minnesota’s welcoming policies is “Dream Act,” which makes undocumented students eligible for state grants, in-state college tuition and private scholarships. Students must attend a Minnesota high school for three years and either graduate or earn a GED to be eligible for the aid.

Michigan does not have a similar law, but several universities, including the University of Michigan and Wayne State University have “Dream Act” policies.

While many states have enacted laws tightening requirements to vote, Minnesota makes it easier for its residents to vote than in most states.

Citizens must reside in the state for only 20 days in order to vote in an election. They also can register to vote on the day of an election by showing a driver’s license or state identification card.

And starting August 12, Minnesotans will be able to obtain an absentee ballot without citing a reason.

On Mother’s Day this year, Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton signed into law a package of bills that, among other things, requires state contractors to pay men and women equally for similar work, expands unpaid parental leave from six to 12 weeks and requires employers to provide areas for nursing mothers to breastfeed.

“The Women’s Economic Security Act aims to break down barriers to economic progress so that women—and all Minnesotans–have a fair opportunity to succeed,” said Minnesota House Speaker Paul Thissen.

Read #StatePoliciesMatter, Michigan Future’s latest report, here.

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But lawmakers have repeatedly failed to boost taxes that would raise the $1.2 billion more a year that Gov. Rick Snyder has said is necessary to fix the roads.

Minnesota years ago developed a comprehensive transportation funding system that has resulted in the state having some of the highest-quality roads and bridges in the country.

It also spends heavily on statewide public transit and on light rail lines in the Twin Cities. Effective mass transit in urban areas is a key element in retaining and attracting young college graduates who are gravitating to cities.

In fiscal year 2013, Minnesota spent $502 per capita on transportation from state taxes, more than double the $223 per capita Michigan spent that year. Overall, Michigan spent $2.2 billion from state taxes on transportation, compared to Minnesota’s spending of $2.7 billion.

A new White House report on the condition of roads and bridges in the states found that those in Minnesota are in the best shape of any Great Lakes state. Michigan’s roads and bridges are in the worst condition.

The report, which drew on data from transportation industry groups and various government agencies, found that just 11 percent of Minnesota’s roads were in poor condition, compared to 22 percent of Michigan roads considered to be in bad shape.

Just 12 percent of Minnesota’s bridges are deficit or obsolete, according to the White House report. Twenty-seven percent of Michigan’s bridges need repair or replacing, the highest percentage in the Great Lakes region.

Bad roads and bridges are hitting the pocketbooks Michigan motorists hard in the form of costly repairs. They pay an annual average of $538.96 in bad-road-related repairs, the highest among motorists in the Great Lakes States.

What about Minnesota? You guessed it. Motorists there pay an average of $369.25 in repairing damage caused by poor roads, the lowest in the Great Lakes region, according to the White House report.

The state funds its portion of the transportation budget through three major taxes; a gasoline tax, a vehicle registration tax and a sales tax on car and truck purchases.

Minnesota’s taxes gasoline at 28.6 cents a gallon, 9.6 cents a gallon more than Michigan’s 19 cents a gallon. Minnesota last raised its gas tax by 8.6 cents, including a 3.5 cent-a-gallon surcharge in 2008.

The state assesses a 6.5 percent sales tax on the purchase of cars and trucks. Forty percent of the revenue from that tax is allocated to funding public transit.

Michigan last boosted its gas tax in 1997 from 15 cents a gallon. The state also relies on vehicle registration fees to support its portion of transportation funding.

Michigan assesses its 6 percent sales tax on gasoline purchases, but the money goes to fund schools and general government operations.

Minnesota also is far ahead of Michigan in establishing urban light rail systems. Several lines operate in the Twin Cities, including the Green Line, which started service in June, connecting Minneapolis, St. Paul and the University of Minnesota.

Michigan’s only urban light rail is Detroit People Mover, a 2.9-mile-long elevated line that circles downtown.

But construction started this month on the 3.3-mile-long M-1 streetcar line along Woodward Avenue in midtown Detroit that backers hope will spark housing and retail development.

Read the latest report from Michigan Future here.

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“The key to the success of Minnesota’s economy over the past 50 years is the quality of its work force,” said Rolnick, co-director of the Human Capital Research Collaborative at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs.

Minnesota has long been a leader in support for education, from preschool through higher education. The results of that commitment are impressive.

Last year’s graduating seniors in Minnesota posted an average composite score of 23.0 on the ACT test, the highest in the nation among the 28 states in which more than half the college-bound students took the test in 2013.

Minnesota has led the nation in average composite ACT scores for eight consecutive years. Thirty-nine percent of Minnesota high school students were deemed college-ready in all four subjects in the ACT last year, among the best in the country.

In Michigan, 21 percent of 2013 high school graduates were considered college ready. All of the state’s graduates were required to take the ACT, while about 74 percent of Minnesota’s graduates took the test.

The state’s investment in higher education—and its ability to retain and attract college graduates—has resulted in the state having one of the most highly educated work forces in the country, a clear advantage in growing a knowledge-based economy.

In 2012, 33.2 percent of Minnesotans had a bachelor’s degree or above, the 10^th highest in the nation. Michigan ranked 36^th with 26 percent of its residents having a bachelor’s degree or above.

Minnesota is a pioneer in recognizing the value of early childhood education for its youngest residents. A 2006 business-led pilot program in St. Paul led to the creation in 2011 of an organization called Parent Aware for School Readiness, which promotes a preschool rating system overseen by the Minnesota Department of Education.

Scholarships are awarded for students to attend only four-star-rated programs run by the private sector and public schools systems.

In the 2013 fiscal year Minnesota spent $153 million from state resources on preschool and childcare assistance and added $30 million more in the 2014 fiscal year.

Michigan also has committed more money to early childhood education. It boosted state funding by $65 million for the current fiscal year, more than any other state.

Minnesota spent $28 per capita on early childhood programming in the 2013 fiscal year, while Michigan spent $27 per capita.

Minnesota also outspent Michigan in K-12 funding by $620 per capita from state and local resources in 2013. Minnesota spent $2,067 per capita while Michigan spent $1,447 per capita on K-12 education.

Michigan’s spending of $14.6 billion in 2013 included $3.4 billion from local funding while Minnesota’s $11.1 billion included $2.3 billion from local property taxes.

Minnesota, a state with about 55 percent of the population of Michigan, spent about 75 percent as much as Michigan did on universities and community colleges in the 2013 fiscal year.

Michigan spent about $1.7 billion on higher education and community colleges, while Minnesota spent about $1.3 billion, mostly for the University of Minnesota and the 31 community colleges and state universities in the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system.

That works out to $243 per capita in Minnesota compared to $172 per capita in higher education spending in Michigan.

Minnesota budgeted an additional $127.1 million for higher education in the 2014 and 2015 years in exchange for a tuition freeze in those years by its colleges and universities.

After years of cutting, Michigan also is boosting funding for higher education. The state’s 15 universities will share nearly $80 million in additional funding in the 2015 fiscal year. But they are required to limit tuition increases to 3.2 percent and meet certain performance goals to receive full funding.

“The increase will help universities make access to higher education available to more students, and give them the resources to continue serving as an important engine of entrepreneurship and research that is vital to growing an economy in the 21st century,” said Michael Boulus, executive director of the Presidents Council, State Universities of Michigan.

That’s something the Minnesota has long understood.

Read the latest report from Michigan Future here.

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In 2012, metro Minneapolis had per capita income of $50,260, the 27^th highest of all metro areas in the United States, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Metro Detroit ranked 111^th with per capita income of $42,261. Metro Grand Rapids had per capita income of $37,264 and ranked 211^th.

Metro Minneapolis also had the lowest unemployment rate of any large metro area in the country in May with a jobless rate of 4 percent.

Metro Detroit was tied with Providence, Rhode Island and Riverside, California for having the highest unemployment rate at 8 percent. Metro Grand Rapids’ jobless rate in May was 5.4 percent.

Underpinning the Twin Cities’ prosperity is a decades-long commitment to regionalism, an idea that metro Detroit and many other communities have struggled to accept.

Local governments in metro Minneapolis share a portion of their tax revenues to promote more even economic development and level the tax burden throughout the seven-county region.

And the regional planning agency in the Twin Cities metro area, called the Metropolitan Council, also operates the public transit and wastewater treatment system.

Tax-base sharing in metro Minneapolis is known as the Fiscal Disparities program and was established in 1971. It shifts tens of millions of dollars among 240 local governments and school districts, and dozens of other tax authorities in the metro area.

Under Fiscal Disparities, 40 percent of the growth in the commercial and industry tax base in the metro area goes into a shared pool. Communities with a smaller per capita property value compared to the metro average get a larger distribution, while communities with a larger per capita property value get a smaller distribution.

In 2013, $390 million in tax base, or 37 percent of the commercial and industrial tax base was shared.

Not everyone has been happy with Fiscal Disparities. Some wealthy suburban communities have complained that it takes millions of dollars from their budgets and subsidizes poorer communities that don’t account for how they use the money.

But a 2012 study of the program for the Minnesota Department of Revenue concluded that donor communities weren’t especially harmed by the loss of tax base. The 234-page report did not recommend changes in the program.

Another crucial element in regionalism in metro Minneapolis is the Metropolitan Council, a regional planning agency similar to the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments in Detroit.

The Metropolitan Council was founded in 1976 and is governed by a policy board whose 17 members are appointed by the governor. Unlike SEMCOG, those members cannot be local government officials.

And also unlike SEMCOG, the Metropolitan Council has operational responsibility for the region’s mass transit and wastewater treatment systems. It claims its wastewater treatment rates are 40 percent lower than peer regions.

The Metropolitan Council collects a portion of the state’s motor vehicle sales tax and a metro-wide property tax to fund its operations.

Forty percent of this year’s $887.8 million budget comes from the state and federal government. The rest comes from the property tax, transit fares and wastewater treatment charges.

The Metropolitan Council says it works to foster prosperity in metro Minneapolis by promoting “a healthy environment, clean water, convenient transit options, parks for recreation and exercise, and housing options.”

Its efforts appear to be succeeding.  The Twin Cities, as well as the rest of the state, regularly rank high in national “quality of life” surveys.

Metro Minneapolis ranked fifth highest among the 52 largest metro areas in this year’s Gallup Well-Being study, based on more than 500,000 telephone interviews. Metro Detroit ranked 50^th.

Read the latest report from Michigan Future here.

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