Most of us know that to get Michigan back on track economically we need to accelerate job growth in high-wage sectors and improve our talent base. But having a competitive business climate matters too. That means not just competitive taxes, but an overall competitive cost structure to do business.

Michigan ranks 40th among the states on Forbes most recent ranking of the total cost of doing business. Detroit ranked 162 out of 195 top metros. The Forbes measure is a good one because it considers not just the cost of taxes, but also the cost of labor, energy and office space.

The top states for job growth over the past ten years score consistently higher in the Forbes business cost rankings than the low job growth states. The other interesting finding is that the highest rates of personal income growth tend to be in states Forbes identifies as having lower business costs.

Taxes do matter, especially when you're Michigan and rank 49th out of 50 states on the Tax Foundation's latest corporate tax index. But it's really the total cost of doing business in Michigan that needs to be addressed as one prong of a three prong strategy to revive our economy.