President Obama tells Michigan workers the era of high pay without a good education is ending.
U.S. President Barack Obama entered what could be labeled the belly of the U.S. economic beast on Tuesday when he visited the campus of Macomb Community College, in Warren, Michigan, to announce his new American Graduation Initiative, which will provide $10 billion in government backed loans to renovate community college classrooms across the country.
It’s part of the President’s plan to have America achieve the ranking of having the highest college graduation rate of any country within the next decade – something critical for American competitiveness, Obama told the crowd, since the jobs of tomorrow are going to require an Associates Degree at minimum.
The president warned the estimated 2,000 people attending the speech that the jobs the auto industry treasured for so long — working on the line for $65,000 a year with just a high-school diploma — were long gone.
“Some of the jobs that have been lost in the auto industry and elsewhere won’t be coming back,” he stressed. “They’re the casualties of a changing economy. In some cases, just increased productivity in the plants themselves means that some jobs aren’t going to return.”
It was tough medicine for a section of the nation that has already seen unemployment reach 14.1%, the highest in the nation — mostly as a result of the tribulations in the auto industry. Still, the president said he remains confident that GM and Chrysler can thrive now that they have exited bankruptcy protection.
“After a painful period of soul-searching and sacrifice, both GM and Chrysler have emerged from bankruptcy. Remember, folks said there was no way they could do it? They’ve gotten it done already, in record time — far faster than anybody thought possible. They’ve got a leaner structure, they’ve got new management, and a viable vision of how to compete and win in the 21st century,” he said.
Obama’s sobering message didn’t seem to dampen the mood of United Auto Workers Union President Ron Gettelfinger, who attended the speech and told TheDetroitBureau.com Obama has done all he can to help the industry and the facts are the facts.
“I think what he was doing was describing the situation and the need for us to move forward as we go through this transformation,” said Gettelfinger. “I think he made a positive statement about how quick the companies came out of bankruptcy and they were set up to be profitable and he did indicate there was some rough road ahead, but that’s with the economy being what it is.”
Gettelfinger declined to speculate as to when auto sales would recover. He said actions by the UAW to enable General Motors and Chrysler to affordably produce small cars in the U.S. should help save some of the jobs that would otherwise have been lost. Earlier this month, GM announced it would produce a new generation of subcompact cars in Michigan.
The union chief remains confident Chrysler and GM will be poised for strong profitable growth when the economy recovers. “We have great product out there and we have to win a bit of consumer confidence but we feel good about the future and don’t forget they (the bankruptcy court) set the SAAR (annualized sales) level at 10-million for these companies to break-even, so we should be in good shape,” Gettelfinger said.