Fireworks companies paid the state an estimated $2 million in licensing fees and the 12 percent in sales taxes levied on their products through the end of August — lagging far behind the revenue estimates ranging from $8 million to $40 million proponents had touted to get the Legislature and Gov. Rick Snyder to lift a 45-year ban on the sale and use of airborne fireworks.

Solis warned that more than two-thirds of the fastest-growing occupations in the United States will soon require some kind of training or education after high school, even though half of all unemployed adults today lack any type of college degree or certificate