Michigan SOAR incentive reports show new hiring, but critics press accountability

Summary

Michigan’s $2.4 billion SOAR business incentive program, a marquee corporate subsidy effort launched in 2022 under Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, has started producing “new” hiring figures in state reporting for 2025—even as critics pressed lawmakers to roll back the program and questioned whether the deals have delivered enough jobs for the public money involved.

In reports submitted to the state for the Strategic Outreach and Attraction Reserve (SOAR) Fund, Bridge Michigan tallied 1,846 jobs created in 2025 among 10 companies that received a collective $1.74 billion in large taxpayer subsidies. The reporting shows that the new hiring represented the first jobs created under the program that were tied to the state’s SOAR reporting for that period.

The same documents show the scale of the shortfall relative to company promises. Those 10 companies had promised 14,559 new jobs over multiple years under SOAR agreements with the Michigan Economic Development Corp., according to the reported totals. Bridge’s tally said the 1,846 jobs created in 2025 came to less than 13% of those promised jobs, even as some projects also included “retained” jobs.

Dow Inc., one of the largest SOAR award recipients, also reported job retention rather than new hires. Bridge’s tally said Dow retained 5,028 jobs, keeping it on a pace to retain at least 5,000 jobs in Michigan through 2032 in exchange for a $120 million grant aimed at modernizing Midland-area facilities.

The state’s job accounting also includes cases beyond 2025 “created” jobs, bringing the year’s combined total of new or retained jobs to 6,874 when paired with Dow’s retention. Across the companies awarded SOAR subsidies, Bridge’s tally said firms had promised to create or retain a total of 19,599 jobs.

While supporters of the program argued that hiring would come later as projects progressed, some lawmakers continued to challenge whether the deals merit continued public support. Republcians and some Democrats have scrutinized the taxpayer subsidies after years of questioning whether the billions spent are worth the returns, and lawmakers defunded SOAR for the current budget year.

Rep. Jasper Martus, D-Flushing, said in response to the changing political climate that “Large checks are not necessarily going to fix everything,” in comments about how economic development policy views have evolved. A Michigan Economic Development Corp. spokesperson, Danielle Emerson, said the scale of the investment matched the size of the multi-year projects and that hiring was expected to take years. Emerson told Bridge Michigan, “We have every confidence it will continue to happen,” adding, “These are good-paying jobs with important economic impacts to the communities they are in.”

Supporters and critics also pointed to specific projects to argue their case. In Saginaw County’s Richland Township, Bridge reported that Corning subsidiary Solar Technology LLC was finishing a roughly 1-million-square-foot factory close to Hemlock Semiconductor, another Corning-related company. Solar Technology received a $68 million SOAR award and an additional $29 million earmarked for utility upgrades to support its new solar-energy component factory, and it was expected to create 1,151 new jobs.

Bridge reported that Solar Technology had added 1,244 jobs so far—about 100 more than promised—at an average pay of $55,223. A company spokesperson told Bridge the SOAR grant helped the firm hire ahead of schedule, and Township Manager Rob Grose told Bridge that the work involved “a long haul” of at least three years, while he said the results to date show “it’s been a great asset to the community.”

In addition to these “jobs delivered” examples, the state’s broader SOAR reporting also laid out how funds were awarded and how plans changed over time. Bridge tallied that the state has awarded companies a combined $1.86 billion in SOAR-related support, including direct payments and related site improvement, and that it has spent $1 billion of that so far. Bridge reported that another $660 million was awarded to economic development groups for site readiness without a specific company in mind, including $259 million for a speculative megasite near Flint.

Bridge’s tally also reported that SOAR projects were originally projected to spur $18.7 billion in corporate investments in Michigan, but that figure was reduced to $10.7 billion after companies changed plans. The reporting cited a $3.5 billion drop in expected spending by General Motors and LG Energy Solution as part of that shift. It also said hiring to date reflects a cost per new job of about $795,000 based on still-active job-creation incentive awards and recent company reports to the state, and that if all jobs are realized from active projects the cost would drop to about $160,000 per new job.

Bridge reported that some SOAR deals have been postponed, changed, or canceled amid shifts in vehicles, energy storage, and federal policy. The reporting said electric vehicles were a major original focus of the program, but automaker production plan changes slowed some of the deals. Bridge also reported that Ford Motor Co. did not pursue its first SOAR award, tied in part to electrification upgrades, and that Ford had previously put a $3.5 billion battery factory in Marshall on hold before downsizing. It said Ford now expects a $2.5 billion investment and 1,700 hires there, with its SOAR awards reduced by about $70 million to $326.3 million.

The reporting also laid out additional examples of how employment targets shifted. Bridge said Ford reported 146 new workers at the Ford BlueOval Michigan factory in 2025, and that it planned to use some of the new EV battery capacity to produce energy storage systems. It said most of those hires were administrative according to what Ford told the state, and it added that the company expected the 500-acre factory to open this year as hiring continues, with average pay so far of $75,000 per year and more than 70% of workers expected to come from the Marshall area and nearby communities.

Other SOAR-funded efforts were reported as poised for increased hiring. Bridge said an LG Energy battery factory near Lansing is among projects where hiring is expected to increase, and it described how the state transferred a $120 million SOAR cash award after GM sold its battery factory to a partner and production shifted from EV batteries to energy storage systems. Bridge reported that LG had reported hiring 408 of the 1,360 workers required by SOAR, with regular production planned to start this quarter.

Bridge reported that GM also promised eventual hiring as it retools an Orion Assembly factory in Oakland County. It said the site had been planned for EVs but would now produce gas-fueled trucks and SUVs, with GM telling the state that it started an “initial wave of onboarding” and forecasts about 1,500 workers by year-end as production starts in the first quarter of 2027. Bridge said GM received $480 million from SOAR.

Not all projects had reached job delivery, however. Bridge reported that Detroit Diesel received a $27.7 million award for a plant in Redford Township and Detroit to add 436 jobs, but said the contract signed in December meant it was not yet included in annual fiscal year reporting. It also reported that Gotion Inc. was awarded $175 million through SOAR but that the state canceled the agreement and sought return of $50 million that had been disbursed after the state said the company defaulted by not making progress on its EV battery factory near Big Rapids.

The reporting also described projects that remained approved but unfunded, including Highland Copper’s $50 million award for a copper mine in the Upper Peninsula, and it said the University of Michigan had not finalized its $100 million contract but still planned a controversial $1.2 billion data center project in Ypsilanti Township. Bridge said U-M, Gotion and the canceled Ford project account for about 5,900 promised jobs, or about 30% of expected hiring from company-specific SOAR deals.

Looking ahead, Bridge reported that about $651 million in SOAR funding remained available to the state from $2.4 billion in budget authorizations, citing a House Fiscal Agency figure from January. The reporting said dissatisfaction with Michigan’s high-dollar economic development subsidies has escalated since 2022 and that lawmakers eliminated SOAR from the current year’s budget. Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, was calling to repeal SOAR so it cannot be revived, and Whitmer was seeking another $150 million in site-readiness SOAR money through a supplemental budget request from February.

Even as lawmakers weigh the program’s future, Emerson argued the projects’ timelines and broader impacts should be part of the assessment. She told Bridge that “There is so much more to these multi-year projects than just the hiring at the facility,” describing local business hiring and construction costs. She added, “These projects were never about instant results, rather anchoring investments that will deliver opportunity for decades to come.”