Historical Background & Statistics

The flat plains south of Saginaw Bay, the inlet of Lake Huron that separates Michigan's Thumb (people really call it that) from the mitten of the Lower Peninsula, is one of the nation's premier industrial areas. Some 130 years ago it was the nation's premier lumber country, with huge stands of virgin trees being cut down and 36 sawmills in Bay City, with logs piled high along both banks of the Saginaw River in the 15 miles between Bay City and Saginaw. When the land was clear it was sown with beans--the navy beans which are the prime ingredient of Senate bean soup--and sugar beets. A century ago, industry followed. Flint, a small town on a minor branch of the Saginaw River, was the home base of W. C. Durant, the investor who merged several young auto firms and formed General Motors. GM put its Chevrolet and Buick factories in Flint and its power steering facility in Saginaw, chosen because it was already a center of precision machinery manufacturing. From 1910 through the 1960s, Flint grew lustily as it built Chevrolets and Buicks, attracting workers from the mountains of Kentucky and Tennessee and the Black Belt of Alabama; country music, blues and soul and Southern accents became common in an area originally settled by New England Yankees. There was turmoil, too. Flint was the scene in January 1937 of the great sit-down strike that, when Governor Frank Murphy refused to send the National Guard to enforce a court order, forced GM to recognize the United Auto Workers as the bargaining agent for all its workers. Yet in many ways the GM company towns built good lives for their citizens. The UAW-GM contracts produced the world's highest wages for industrial workers.

In the 1970's, auto sales plummeted with the oil shock of 1979, and imports were taking an increasing share of the market.  In 1979 GM employed more than 70,000 workers in its Flint plants, a huge share of the labor force in a metro area of 430,000 people. Over the years, thousands left Flint as GM closed 13 of its 15 factories. By the late 2000’s, the GM payroll had fallen below 12,000 and total local employment had dropped about 60%. In 2008, GM announced it was slashing its assembly line production by about 30% including at its Flint facilities. In June, 2008, the company filed for bankruptcy and shut yet another factory with 650 workers.

Saginaw has also suffered, with huge cutbacks by Delphi, its largest employer. But there has also been some upturn. American car manufacturers have grown more adaptable and resilient, and small high-skill manufacturing operations in the Saginaw area have grown up in old factory buildings; this is part of southern Michigan's industrial belt with the expertise to sustain just-in-time manufacturing.

The 5th Congressional District includes Flint and surrounding Genesee County, Saginaw and eastern Saginaw County, Bay City and eastern Bay County and rural Tuscola County, which is part of the Thumb. Flint, evenly divided between the parties when the sit-down strikes divided the community in the 1930s, is now heavily Democratic; Saginaw and Bay City somewhat less so. Tuscola County continues to vote Republican.

Statistical Information

Major Industry: Auto parts manufacturing, agriculture, sugar processing

Cities: Flint; Saginaw; Bay City; Burton

District Size: 1,780 square miles

Population in 2007: 649,971; 79.4% urban; 20.6% rural

Median Household Income: $42,040; 17.3% are below the poverty line

Occupation: 26.9% blue collar; 52.7% white collar;  10.5% military veterans

Education: 86.4% high school graduates; 17.4% college graduates; graduate degree 5.9%

Race/Ethnic Origin: 75.7% White, 17.9% Black, 3.6% Hispanic origin, 0.8% Asian, 0.4% Amer. Indian, 1.6% Two+ races

Ancestry: 17.4% German, 8.3% Irish, 8.0% English

Information courtesy of National Journal's The Almanac of American Politics 2010