The United Auto Workers strike against GM over a lack of a new contract has dragged on into a second week. Meanwhile, the negotiations over the state budget are going down to the wire ahead of the start of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1, and the prospects of enacting a budget and avoiding a state government shutdown don’t appear bright.

The combination of those two storylines isn’t good news for Michigan’s economy. On today’s show, we hear from Charles Ballard, an economics professor at Michigan State University who has written extensively about the state’s economy.

Ballard says the economics of a prolonged GM strike, coupled with a state government shutdown, would particularly hurt the Lansing region, which has a GM plant and is the state capitol. And it could definitely push Michigan back into recession for the first time in a decade.

And Michigan’s economy hasn’t been doing all that great to begin with, Ballard says, with a major slowdown in the number of jobs created since 2017, and any economic gains mostly flowing to the top earners. Have a listen in the player above.

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