THE PuLSE INSTITUTE | MICHIGAN POVERTY FORUM SERIES
The 2026 Governor’s Race and the Poverty Question We Cannot Ignore
EDITOR’S NOTE | Bankole Thompson, Editor-in-Chief, PuLSE Ideas & Commentary
John Bodary, President of Woods Construction, brings to The PuLSE Institute’s Michigan Poverty Forum Series the perspective of an employer working at the intersection of construction, workforce development and economic opportunity. In this essay, Bodary challenges Michigan’s next governor to look beyond the number of jobs created and confront a more consequential question: Do those jobs actually provide a pathway out of poverty?
By John Bodary
President, Woods Construction
Michigan’s next governor will hear no shortage of proposals for creating jobs.
But the most important question may not be how many jobs Michigan creates.
It may be this: What kind of jobs actually give people a pathway out of poverty?
That question deserves particular attention in Michigan—and especially in Detroit—where construction offers something more valuable than another campaign promise: a working model.
The PuLSE Institute has challenged Michigan’s political leadership to confront poverty not simply as a statistic, but as a moral responsibility. Its Michigan Poverty Forum Series asks a question that should remain at the center of the conversation about the state’s future:
Prosperity for whom? Construction gives us a practical way to begin answering it.
Investment Must Reach the Worker
Michigan is experiencing major investment in infrastructure, transportation, energy, broadband and development. At the same time, the state faces a serious need for skilled workers to build and maintain that infrastructure.
That creates both an opportunity and a test. If Michigan spends billions building roads, bridges, buildings, water systems and energy infrastructure without creating durable career pathways for people in communities experiencing poverty, we will have missed a larger economic opportunity.
Construction demonstrates what such a pathway can look like. A good career in construction does not necessarily begin with a four-year college degree. It can begin with an employer, a union, a pre-apprenticeship program, a classroom or a worksite—and someone willing to teach a person a skill while that person earns a paycheck.
Michigan’s registered apprenticeship system shows what can happen when education and employment are connected rather than treated as separate worlds.
The state had more than 24,000 active registered apprentices in 2025. More than 9,300 people entered apprenticeships that year, while more than 3,000 completed them.
Those are not simply workforce-training numbers. They are economic-mobility numbers.
Connect Training to an Actual Job
The Northern Midwest Regional Council of Carpenters has understood this connection for years.
Detroit has developed construction workforce pipelines connecting residents with contractors and unions, while policies have sought to increase Detroit resident participation on qualifying publicly funded construction projects.
Programs such as Schools to Tools, Helmets to Hardhats and other pre-apprenticeship opportunities take that idea further, providing hands-on experience, mentorship and bridges toward full-time employment and registered apprenticeships.
The Regional Council has also used mobile, and community combines to help contractors meet immediate labor demands while building sustainable recruitment pipelines.
Through partnerships and community events, these efforts bring skilled-trades careers directly into communities, allowing potential workers to learn about apprenticeships, wages, benefits and training while connecting with contractors ready to hire.
Woods Construction hosted two mobile combines in 2026 and immediately employed more than a dozen workers for each job site.
The lesson is straightforward: Workforce development works best when it is connected to actual work.
Too often, workforce policy becomes a collection of programs rather than a system.
People are sent to training without knowing whether an employer is waiting for them. They earn credentials that may not translate into wages. Or they are told to overcome barriers—transportation, childcare, tools, work clothes, licensing or criminal-record barriers—without anyone taking responsibility for helping them do it.
Construction teaches a different lesson.
Employers need workers. Workers need opportunity. Unions need the next generation of skilled tradespeople. Government needs projects delivered. Communities need residents earning family-supporting incomes.
Those interests can reinforce one another.
Measure More Than Jobs Created
Michigan’s next governor should therefore treat workforce development not as a side program of economic policy, but as part of the state’s core economic strategy. And that requires changing how Michigan measures success.
Investment announced is not enough. Buildings constructed are not enough. Even the number of jobs created does not tell the whole story.
Michigan should also ask: How many people from low-income communities entered those jobs? How many completed apprenticeships? How many moved from temporary work into lasting careers? How many saw their household incomes rise?
Those questions tell us whether economic development is actually producing economic mobility. Detroit and other Michigan communities should be at the center of that conversation. Detroit’s experience demonstrates that development can become a workforce strategy—but only when expectations are established before projects begin.
Developers, contractors, labor, workforce agencies, community organizations and government must sit at the same table before the groundbreaking, not after the ribbon cutting.
From Surviving to Building
Government cannot eliminate poverty alone. Employers must create genuine career ladders. Labor must continue opening pathways into skilled trades. Schools and colleges must connect young people to careers beyond the traditional four-year degree. Philanthropy must invest in the infrastructure surrounding workers, not simply short-term programs.
And developers benefiting from public incentives should make measurable commitments to the communities where they build.
This is what construction can teach Michigan: A job is not automatically a pathway out of poverty.
A career pathway is different.
It provides an entry point, training, wages, mentorship, credentials, advancement and a realistic opportunity to become economically secure.
That distinction should matter in this gubernatorial election. Michigan does not merely need another debate about jobs. It needs a debate about the quality, accessibility and economic consequences of those jobs.
So the question posed by The PuLSE Institute remains: Prosperity for whom?
Prosperity should reach the apprentice learning a trade. The Detroit resident getting onto the jobsite. The worker whose wages rise as skills increase. The young person discovering that a meaningful career can begin without crushing debt. And the family finally moving from surviving to building something of its own.
That is what a pathway out of poverty looks like. And that should be part of the standard by which Michigan evaluates the agenda of its next governor.