When the next mayor takes office in January, they’ll need all kinds of expertise to try and improve Detroiters’ finances.
Why it matters: Poverty is a critical and complex issue here. While it’s crucial to draw on longtime local experts, it can also be worthwhile to cast a wider net and see what has worked elsewhere.
State of play: Detroit residents’ incomes have made significant gains, but the poverty rate still climbed recently.
- As the previous story in our poverty series showed, mayoral candidates City Council President Mary Sheffield and the Rev. Solomon Kinloch Jr. want to incentivize employers to pay living wages, among other strategies.
Caveat: It can be tough for Detroit’s mayor to make change because Michigan cities are barred from instituting their own minimum wages, and national forces affect the local economy…