Michigan Trump voters rely on spending Musk's DOGE might cut
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If the incoming administration wants to slash federal spending, Michiganders living in some of the same areas who voted for President-elect Trump could be the ones to pay the price.
Why it matters: The Elon Musk/Vivek Ramaswany-led Department of Government Efficiency has proposed $2 trillion in annual federal cost savings. To reach that goal — or get near it — would require cuts to transfer programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
- Reality check: The administrative cost of these programs tends to be a small fraction of the money spent; the overwhelming cost is the benefits themselves. For Social Security, for example, administrative overhead is about 0.5% of total spending.
Driving the news: Researchers at the Economic Innovation Group analyzed county-level data on how much personal income was driven by those federal transfer programs in 2022 as opposed to income earned from wages and investments.
- In the counties most reliant on transfer payments — where they account for more than 25% of all income — Trump won 63% of the vote.
- In those counties least reliant on transfers — accounting for 15% or less of total income — Vice President Harris won 56% of the vote, according to EIG.
Zoom in: In Michigan, up north counties and parts of the Upper Peninsula saw the highest reliance on transfer payments, while Metro Detroit suburbs in Oakland and Washtenaw counties and areas around Grand Rapids reported lower amounts.
By the numbers: The counties most reliant on those payments were Montmorency, where 49% of income was from government transfers, followed by Roscommon (45%), Ontonagon (45%), Lake (44%), Luce (42%) and Clare (41%).
- All of those counties voted for Trump in November.
- They also all have higher percentages of people who are 65 and older, according to state statistics. Montmorency, Roscommon and Ontonagon are in Michigan's top 10 counties with the highest 65-plus population.
- Metro Detroit counties were among the state's least reliant on government aid. Oakland and Washtenaw county residents both had the smallest share of income from transfer payments at 12%, with Macomb County at 20% and Wayne at 28%.