Report: Michigan not hurting from government shutdown as much as other states

There’s a new report that may help explain why Michigan isn’t feeling as big an impact from the federal government shutdown as other states.

Michigan ranks 41st on a new survey of how the shutdown affects the fifty states and the District of Columbia.

The survey is by WalletHub.com. John Kiernan is a senior analyst at WalletHub.

He says Michigan’s relatively low number of federal employees and other direct federal spending spares the state from much of the pain being felt in states like Virginia (1^st) and Alaska (2^nd), which topped the rankings.

“We gave more weight to the federal employees per capita and federal contracts per capita than the Social Security element,” says Kiernan.

But Kiernan says Michigan may also start feeling pain from the shutdown if Social Security and other entitlement spending is affected.

And he warns Michigan and the rest of the country won’t be spared from the effects if Congress fails to approve an increase in the nation’s debt ceiling.

“That would really have widespread effects for the entire country,” says Kiernan, “So it’s perhaps a less ‘state by state’ issue moving forward.”

By the way, the states feeling the least effects from the federal government shutdown, according to WalletHub.com, are New York (49^th), Indiana (50^th) and Iowa (51^st).