Economic Recovery Strategy

Economic Recovery and Resiliency Plan 

Virtually every aspect of the US economy was impacted in March of 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 public health emergency. People across Michigan were asked to stay home to reduce and slow the spread of the deadly virus. The economy went into a short recession and many individuals and families are still feeling the effects.

This plan is twofold: it looks at what happened and how we recover from the lingering effects, as well as what a resilient regional economy looks like and how to move toward it.

SWMPC partnered with the University of Michigan Economic Growth Institute to obtain relevant economic data and to run economic models to demonstrate where collective efforts should be made for an increased return on investment. These economic models in conjunction with our understanding of the regional economy allowed us to develop and advocate for projects that would make southwest Michigan more resilient. Projects are sorted into four categories: restorative, incremental, exponential, and transformational dependent on their relative impact to the economy.

This project was funded through a CARES Act grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) in June 2020.