Census survey data indicates that there was “no uptick in employment” in the twelve states that cut residents off from federal pandemic-related unemployment benefits in mid-June. However, residents of those states were more likely to report it was “somewhat difficult” or “very difficult” to pay for usual household expenses, compared to surveys conducted before the unemployment programs ended. 

Arindrajit Dube, an economics professor at UMass Amherst, published his findings on July 18.

Job searches are lower in states that were first to cut off federal pandemic-related unemployment benefits, compared to states that have continued to participate in those federal programs, according to analysis by Jed Kolko, the chief economist for the online jobs site Indeed.

Governor Kim Reynolds announced on May 11 that Iowans would cease to be able to collect the pandemic-related unemployment, effective June 12, putting Iowa among the first four states to end their participation in the federal programs. Tens of thousands of jobless Iowans were receiving a total of more than $30 million a week through the three discontinued programs. Iowa business groups and Republican politicians applauded the move, saying the extra unemployment benefits were holding back the economy by keeping people out of the workforce.

Kolko regularly tracks online job searches and found last month that “job search activity on Indeed increased, relative to the national trend, in states that announced they would end federal UI benefits prematurely.” However, “This increase was temporary, vanishing by the eighth day after the announcement. In the second week after the announcement, the state’s share of national clicks was no higher than it was during the late-April baseline.”

Kolko wrote on June 22 (emphasis added),

In the natural order of things, members of Congress brag about the federal assistance they fought to obtain for their constituents.

The Republicans who represent Iowa in the U.S. House and Senate turned that formula on its head this week. Every one cheered the news that tens of thousands of Iowans will soon lose the federal government support they depend on.

Governor Kim Reynolds showed yet again on May 11 that she will happily undermine vulnerable Iowans’ household budgets in order to please Republican allies and business lobby groups.

But her plan to turn down tens of millions of dollars a week in federal unemployment benefits rests on flawed premises.

Dan Piller: Far from rescuing rural Iowa, more broadband will hasten the exodus from farms and small towns into the cities. -promoted by Laura Belin

Everybody loves the idea of spending billions of tax dollars to wire the countryside with high speed broadband that is otherwise economically unfeasible. President Donald Trump took a few minutes away from trying to overturn the election last December to reward his loyal rural supporters with $10 billion for the high-speed internet access. President Joe Biden wants to set aside billions more for rural broadband in his “infrastructure” master plan.

In Iowa, Democrats are so cowed by the popularity of rural broadband they’ve acquiesced to Governor Kim Reynolds’ idea to let rural interests help themselves to hundreds of millions of state taxpayer dollars, mostly paid by Iowa’s city dwellers who amount to two-thirds of the state’s population, for rural broadband even though rural broadband will thus join anti-abortion and unlimited gun rights as Reynolds’ calling card to her rural base for her reelection next year.

Charles Bruner is a longtime advocate for policies that support children and strengthen families. -promoted by Laura Belin

About this essay

I studied political science at the beginning of the 1970s at one of the elitist of universities, Stanford University. My graduate school class, if not all radicals, shared a serious critique of American government and the military-industrial complex, the Vietnam war, the academic privilege and not freedom that embodied the Stanford administration, and the failure for society to listen to youth and follow-through on the vision expressed in the decidedly liberal document, The Port Huron Statement.

I returned to Iowa in 1975 feeling alienated and full of angst at my better understanding of the darker side of American politics. But I had no clue how to contribute to changing it. Fortunately, I found a group of 20-somethings in Iowa – largely through the Community Action Research Group (Iowa’s Public Interest Research Group) – doing that work in the policy field on the environment. They connected me to a job at the Iowa Welfare Association funded by the Compensatory Education and Training Act, the federal jobs program that provided nonprofits with funding to create jobs. It gave me space to learn and grow, as it did for others in my group.

Charlie Wishman is president of the Iowa Federation of Labor AFL-CIO. -promoted by Laura Belin

The COVID-19 pandemic has been not only a public health disaster, but also an economic disaster. Many Iowans have experienced filing for unemployment for the first time this past year. As a result, many now realize just how important this lifeline can be for working people and their families. 

You can tell a lot about what kind of legislature we collectively elected by looking at how lawmakers respond to the economic disaster that is COVID-19. Right now, the Republican-controlled Iowa House and Senate are moving a bill forward that would reduce unemployment benefits, inexplicably, during a global pandemic. 

Are we as a state going to continue to allow the rich to stuff their pockets during this pandemic while families suffer? Or worse, will we actively encourage it? Unfortunately, that is exactly what is happening now.

Ras Smith represents Iowa House district 62, covering part of Waterloo. -promoted by Laura Belin

Christmas, for me, is a season of spiritual tradition, personal reflection, and service to
community. Because my mom is a pastor, I had the fortune of growing up in a faith-filled church community. Today, my own children are blessed to experience a closeness to this family faith that instills in them the importance of loving and serving our fellow humans. This makes the holiday season even more meaningful.

As I reflect upon the year, I think about the thousands of Iowans who stepped up to help one another during a global pandemic. I think about people pouring into communities to clean up, provide food, build shelter, and give moral support in the wake of the devastating derecho. I think about the sacrifices of so many essential workers across the state. This is the unbreakable spirit of Iowa, and why I love living here.

But as I reflect further, my heart also hurts for families across the state who experienced preventable suffering and loss at the hands of poor leadership.

The U.S. House and Senate on December 21 approved a $2.3 trillion package to fund the federal government through September 30, 2021 and provide approximately $900 billion in economic stimulus or relief connected to the coronavirus pandemic.

No one in either chamber had time to read the legislation, which was nearly 5,600 pages long, before voting on it. Statements released by Iowans in Congress, which I’ve enclosed below, highlight many of its key provisions. The unemployment and direct payments to families are clearly insufficient to meet the needs of millions of struggling Americans. Senate Republicans blocked aid to state and local governments, many of which are facing budget shortfalls. President-elect Joe Biden has vowed to push for a much larger economic stimulus package early next year.

The legislation headed to President Donald Trump’s desk includes some long overdue changes, such as new limits on “surprise billing” by health care providers for emergency care and some out-of-network care.

Casey Erixon: Mounting evidence suggests that prisons add little to local economies and may do more harm than good to the rural communities that host them. -promoted by Laura Belin

In the wake of the Democrats’ mixed success in the 2020 elections, many party elites have taken to blaming progressive activists, and Black Lives Matter organizers in particular, for costing the party votes in key rural areas. Most prominently U.S. Representative Abigail Spanberger was characterized as “speaking hard truths” when, on a post-election conference call with House leadership, she claimed that calls by activists to defund the police were used in attack ads against her and other candidates from so-called red districts.

Jeremy Dumkrieger chairs the Woodbury County Democrats. -promoted by Laura Belin

In 2018, the Woodbury County Democrats approved the platform pasted below. It wasn’t perfect, but it was simple. It was intended to be. In fact, it could be simpler.

We wanted something we could put on a palm card to let folks know what we believe. Far too often we are bogged down by complicated rhetoric that serves only to obscure the direct message intended for everyday Iowans.

Soon the Iowa Democratic Party will host the Platform Committee’s work to finalize our state platform. I suggest they ignore specifics and finally see the bigger picture.

Mitch Henry: The first step toward getting the state and the nation back on track is electing leaders with the vision and experience to deal with the challenges we face. -promoted by Laura Belin

Iowa faces many challenges in the months and years ahead.

On the economic front, our unemployment rate is 6 percent, nearly twice what it was before the COVID-19 pandemic began. The Iowa Leading Indicators Index, a mix of economic metrics showing where our economy is headed, “strongly suggests” that the state economy will weaken through 2021.

In health care, we are moving in the wrong direction both short-term and long-term. In the short-term, our state has been unable to get a handle on the COVID crisis. Eight months into the pandemic, we continue to set records for hospitalizations and cases. Long-term, we are going to have to help the 24,000 Iowans who have lost insurance since 2016.

Then there is the climate crisis. Whether or not you believe this summer’s derecho was a direct result of climate change, all of us can agree that warming temperatures and more severe weather will have a negative impact on our state.

Former Republican C.J. Petersen on the values and issues that drove him to run for the Iowa Senate and become the new chair of the Carroll County Democrats. -promoted by Laura Belin

In the fall of 2010, I knocked on the door of a 70-year-old woman in rural Grundy Center, Iowa. I was there on a mission: get Terry Branstad and Kim Reynolds elected governor and lieutenant governor of Iowa.

The woman was kind, and we discussed the issues of the day–jobs, health care, and her feeling that our state and nation were on the wrong track. “Trust me,” I told her. “Terry Branstad and Kim Reynolds are ready to lead Iowa’s comeback.”

Julie Ann Neely: “We will live through this, but when the pandemic runs its course, environmental degradation will remain to disrupt our economy and threaten our health.” -promoted by Laura Belin

While simultaneously trying to stay safe and reopen the economy, the COVID-19 pandemic reminds us daily that we are all part of the interconnected web of life on earth. We are struggling with unprecedented disruptions in healthcare and the economy, as climate disasters increase in frequency and intensity, exacerbating health risks.

Long after this wave of infections ebbs and a vaccine is developed, we will still live with the reverberations. Whether we are able to deal with them depends on the leaders we elect in November.

In the grand scheme of things, Mother Earth doesn’t give a fig about politics, the stock market, big profits, or the lines we draw in the sand that divide us. Nor does she need us.

Colin Gordon reviews the governor’s recent “business-friendly” decisions and suggests more productive, equitable ways to rebuild Iowa’s economy. -promoted by Laura Belin

The recently-created Governor’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board is charged with drafting a strategy not just to speed recovery from the COVID-19 recession but, as Governor Kim Reynolds charged the board, “to modernize and really restructure our economy, our education and health care systems, our workforce and our quality of life.”

It’s a lofty goal, but first impressions do not inspire confidence.

Scott Roland is an activist from Cedar Rapids. -promoted by Laura Belin

Introduction

Whatever we think that we are doing, it is certainly not working. We are asked to embrace some variation of the status quo that offers us ruinous household debt, political corruption that has become normalized, stagnant growth rates, perilously insecure employment, a natural environment that is on a course to become barely inhabitable, and a health care system that leaves many just one medical emergency away from bankruptcy. As a society, we have fallen into a chasm, and have brought our diminished faith in American exceptionalism with us. 

These problems have been exacerbated by a complacent political class, but politicians like Kimberly Graham offer us a credible path forward. Absurdly, some have painted her as an unrealistic radical, but in much of the developed world, she would be a mainstream social democrat. Her desire is not a destructive revolution, but decency: universal publicly financed health care, wages that ensure that households live above the threshold of poverty, elections that can’t be bought by the highest bidder, a system that does not leave students shackled in debt, and a Green New Deal to address the trillions in negative externality costs related to climate change.

Ira Lacher: We may don masks to keep ourselves safe from the novel coronavirus, but no amount of #We’reInThisTogether can mask that we are far apart. -promoted by Laura Belin

“REOPENINGS EXPOSE U.S. DIVISIONS” proclaimed Saturday’s New York Times.

A Google search for “divided America” returns 417 million pages.

Writing in The Atlantic, George Packer reveals what should be as plain as the masks on our faces and the gloves on our hands: Because of our many divisions, America is rapidly becoming a failed state:

Dan Piller speculates on what the federal government might attempt if the 2020 presidential and Congressional elections swing toward Democrats. -promoted by Laura Belin

Democrats have learned, the hard way, to never count on a landslide before votes are cast. But the combination of a 1930s-style economic collapse, President Donald Trump’s manic blunderings, and his dismal poll numbers no doubt generate dreams in progressive minds of a landslide election in November that sweeps them into unchallengeable control of both the White House and congress in a manner similar to the Democratic sweeps of 1932 or 1964.

So what might happen if Joe Biden and a host of happy progressives settle into power in Washington next January (probably after walking past gun-toting, camouflage-wearing Trumpers making a Last Stand)?

John Whiston reflects on several books about industrial decline and the social dislocation that has accompanied it. -promoted by Laura Belin

A friend emailed me the other day, a friend I worked with forty years ago at a plywood mill in Bonner, Montana. We pulled veneer on the green chain, very heavy repetitive work. He asked me to talk with his 30-something son, who might be having some legal problems. So, I spent about an hour in conversation with this young man.

His was familiar story, very much what I’d heard as a lawyer in Iowa for 25 years. I learned he had graduated high school with few skills. While his father and grandfather had been able to go to work at the Bonner mill with good wages, medical insurance, a pension, and a strong union, the mill had closed. He then described a few experiences that seemed to fit in a small way with a whole constellation of symptoms that I had seen in my working-class clients: unemployment, underemployment, injuries, illness, disability, substance abuse, terrible credit, family issues, run-ins with the law.

I now suspect that the underlying problem is a profound despair. Granted, not every working-class person displays this despair, but it appears in an increasing portion. Their despondency bleeds out into their families and communities and affects us all.

Dan Piller: Donald Trump benefitted from a slumping agricultural economy in 2016, but the Iowa farm economy has slid even further on his watch. -promoted by Laura Belin

A mystery that will baffle historians a century from now is how a fast-talking New Yorker like Donald Trump could win Iowa’s six electoral votes by with a 9.4 percentage point margin over Hillary Clinton despite losing six of Iowa’s most populous counties.

Trump was called a “populist,” which would have surprised original 19th century populists such as Andrew Jackson and William Jennings Bryan, who at least lived in the outlier states of Tennessee and Nebraska and faithfully represented the values of their regions.

But despite a near-total lack of connections and experience with Iowa, Trump overcame Clinton’s margins in Scott, Polk, Story, Linn, Black Hawk, Johnson, and Scott counties to win big in rural counties. Trump’s politics of resentment played well in non-urban Iowa, beset by losses of population, schools and businesses, rising drug and crime problems, and a feeling of being culturally denigrated by Clinton and the coastal-dominated political and media elites.

Trump also benefitted from a slumping Iowa agricultural economy in 2016, which tends to work in favor of challengers. But there lies the rub for President 45; the Iowa farm economy has slid even further on his watch. As farmers take to the fields to plant this month, troubling numbers are coming from all sides as the effects of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) and the trade war on agriculture are tallied.

Ira Lacher: For years, America has debated the need for some form of mandatory national service that does not necessarily include the military. The need is clear now. -promoted by Laura Belin

After 9/11, our leaders determined that a public agency was necessary to prevent further acts of terrorism on passenger airlines, and the Transportation Security Administration was born, as part of the new Department of Homeland Security. Now, everyone who travels has become accustomed to these uniformed “wanders at airports,” as per many a crossword puzzle clue.

The scale of the economic collapse caused by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is beginning to come into view. The national economy may contract by 40 percent in the second quarter, with unemployment reaching 20 percent. One nationwide survey published this week indicated that 33 percent of voters–including 52 percent of respondents under age 45–have either lost their job, had work hours reduced, or been furloughed.

Iowa’s latest unemployment figures show yet another record number of new claims.

Dan Guild examines opinion polls from 1979 and 1980 for clues on how the COVID-19 crisis could affect President Donald Trump’s approval. -promoted by Laura Belin

The White House predicts between 100,000 and 200,000 Americans may die because of novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Ten million people in this country have lost their jobs in two weeks. Ian Bremmer noted that an estimated 3.5 billion people were in lockdown because of the pandemic, which probably makes it the most widely shared experience in human history.

Dan Guild on how an avalanche of new unemployment claims will not only be a human tragedy, but also strain hospital finances and state budgets. -promoted by Laura Belin

We are in the midst of a health crisis, first and foremost. That should not be forgotten, and I will highlight one aspect of that crisis a little later in the piece.

But we are also in the midst of an economic crisis, and despite what you have may read about the stock market, that crisis is being underestimated. Every week the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports how many people filed new claims for unemployment insurance. Those numbers are the closest thing to real-time data that we have about the U.S. labor market.

The U.S. House has fast-tracked a bill responding to the economic challenges created by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. All 223 Democrats present–including Iowa’s Representatives Abby Finkenauer (IA-01), Dave Loebsack (IA-02), and Cindy Axne (IA-03)–voted for the bill shortly before 1:00 am on March 14, joined by 140 Republicans (roll call). U.S. Representative Steve King (IA-04) was one of 40 House Republicans to vote no.

Midwestern states continue to have greater “racial disparities in economic opportunity and economic outcomes” than do other regions of the U.S., while “policy interventions designed to close those gaps are meager,” concludes a new report by Colin Gordon of the University of Iowa and the Iowa Policy Project.

Gordon’s findings are consistent with past research showing that African Americans in Iowa face pervasive barriers in many areas of life. By some measures, our state’s racial disparities are among the worst in the Midwest region and the country.

Ira Lacher reports on the People’s Forum in Des Moines. -promoted by Laura Belin

While thousands sat in single-lane traffic at Water Works Park hoping to hear seventeen presidential candidates deliver ten-minute stump speeches, several thousand Midwesterners from five states crammed into the Iowa Events Center on September 21 to listen to four candidates explain at length why they deserved the votes of progressives.

Jon Muller: The Trump administration’s two stated goals “are incompatible to the point of being mutually exclusive in a peaceful world.” -promoted by Laura Belin

There is a consensus in the U.S. that China is a bad actor. It is not so much my goal to destroy that consensus, though most of its underpinnings are based in fantasy, nationalism, and the convenient politics of fear.

Rather, this essay is a critique of current U.S. policy, and the absurdity of the disconnect between what we say we want versus what we’re asking for.

ISU economist Dave Swenson: Iowa’s rural needs are more complicated, persistent, and acute than the current fortunes of the farm sector. -promoted by Laura Belin

Iowa currently hosts a horde of Democratic presidential candidates, but from what I can tell thus far, few have any meaningful experiences or insights dealing with rural areas or rural issues.

Historically, visiting candidates paid obligatory lip service to farm sector concerns – ethanol, commodity prices, and regulatory restrictions as examples — and assumed or pretended that took care of most rural issues.

But rural economies are more diverse than most suppose.

Des Moines resident Jon Muller has worked in public policy analysis for 27 years. -promoted by Laura Belin

While I will be voting for whoever wins the Democratic nomination for president, Andrew Yang stands out among the nearly two dozen candidates.

There are two fundamental questions most Democrats are considering, broadly, and I’m not much different.

1. Which candidate has the best chance of winning in 2020?
2. Which candidate best conforms to my sense of the best direction for this nation?

In my view, Andrew Yang is the answer to both of those questions. Let’s take the second question first.

Tyler Mills is a Democrat in Keokuk (Lee County). -promoted by Laura Belin

John Hickenlooper is the voice the country needs right now. His bid for the Democratic nomination for president will move us forward, particularly when it comes to a policy discussion. His accomplishments as governor of Colorado from 2011 to 2019 are quite impressive.

Ira Lacher highlights the hypocrisy of New York Times columnist David Brooks. -promoted by Laura Belin

America’s loudest self-apologist is at it again.

Ever since Donald Trump’s election allowed the maggots of Reaganomics to go forth and multiply, New York Times columnist David Brooks, one of the right’s most influential pundits, has been on a flagellation campaign. He has repeatedly chastised the very politiconomic conditions that he and his colleagues brought to bear on Americans, who only wanted to live better than their parents and now find themselves living worse — some considerably so.

And Brooks has done it again with his latest. In Tuesday’s Times, Brooks devotes his latest column to a scholarly paper which says, in effect, that the same people who bought into Republicanism are most suffering its ill-effects.

Barbara Leach, president of My Rural America Action Fund, is a former Iowa farm owner and manager. -promoted by Laura Belin

Much is frightfully wrong in rural America, and 80 percent of Iowa’s counties are right in the thick of it. An unsold crop awaits sale. Sales await the repair of President Donald Trump’s broken trade agreements. Bankers await payments. The flood compounds the troubles.

These troubles affect our economy, consumer food prices, and contribute to the kind of international unrest that is driven by hunger and too often results in military action.

The upcoming Heartland Rural Forum scheduled for March 30 in Storm Lake offers Iowans the chance to kick off a national debate about what could be done to support our fragile family farm economy and our nation’s agricultural sector. Five Democratic presidential candidates (maybe more?) will attend, and there is much for them to talk about.

Barb Kalbach: “Congress panders to corporate ag at the expense of family farms, rural communities, and our food supply.” -promoted by Laura Belin

“This is an evolutionary, not revolutionary Farm Bill,” is the refrain from the Congressional crafters of the recently passed legislation. But this out-of-touch bill locks in a factory farm system that for decades has pushed independent family farmers off their land and left rural residents and our environment worse off.

As our democracy in Washington fails us, important fights at the local and state level are taking on corporate agriculture interests and building a new future for family farmers and rural communities.

Last year’s Democratic nominee in Iowa’s fourth Congressional district submitted this commentary in response to U.S. Representative Steve King’s appearance this weekend on Iowa Public Television. -promoted by Laura Belin

One of the things I’m most proud of after nearly beating Representative Steve King in 2018, following years of his skating to re-election, is some measure of accountability for a congressman who has decided his own personal agenda is more important than helping the people of the fourth district.

Ira Lacher: “If a major party candidate can’t rally registered voters around its candidate, it’s not the voters — it’s the party.” -promoted by Laura Belin

Michael Bloomberg is “actively weighing a president run,” according to The New York Times, and liberal Democrats are having a shit fit.

That’s because the former mayor of New York City, who changed his party from Republican to Democrat in 2018, describes himself as pro-business, anti-recreational pot and pro-stop-and-frisk. He doesn’t want to break up Wall Street, as Senator Elizabeth Warren has called for. He’s also expressed skepticism about some media reports of sexual harassment.

In the two weeks it’s taken me to collect my thoughts on U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren’s first swing through Iowa, three four more Democrats launched presidential campaigns (former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Senator Kamala Harris, and Representative Tulsi Gabbard). More than a dozen people will seek the Democratic nomination in 2020, and eight of them will have visited Iowa this month alone.

Tracking such a large field presents challenges. Bleeding Heartland has already profiled some candidates and their pitches, including U.S. Representative John Delaney and entrepreneur Andrew Yang. I have posts in progress about most of the others. My intention is to write at least one in-depth piece about every serious contender, for the benefit of caucus-goers who want to research all options. With such a strong field, I expect the majority of Iowa Democrats to be late deciders this cycle, myself included.

I’ve transcribed below extensive portions of Warren’s stump speech and Q&A in Des Moines and Ankeny, and also enclosed audio clips for those who would rather listen than read. First, a few of my takeaways:

Gwen Hope unpacks the economic and social possibilities that accompany legalizing cannabis, demystifying the oft-maligned psychoactive plant. -promoted by Laura Belin

Since the middle of the 20th century, cannabis has been a hot button issue, particularly since the Nixon Administration began the War on Drugs. Often political, the criminalization and demonization of the plant and substances derived from it has a complex, but living history in the United States.

A microcosm of the country incarnate, this issue is attached to almost every other issue and stance imaginable: from political party to patriotism, convention to community, race to religion, humanity to harm, morality to medicine, and everything in-between was and is attached to cannabis – the United States’s most popular illicit substance.

U.S. House leaders announced committee assignments for the new Congress this week, and Iowa’s three Democrats could hardly have done better.

Iowa State University economist Dave Swenson reviews the evidence that President Donald Trump’s trade policy is “harming a large number of Iowans, limiting the state’s potential prosperity.” -promoted by Laura Belin

Governor Kim Reynolds’ Condition of the State address had precious little to say about Iowa’s economy, which is odd because that is something her predecessor and mentor always liked to crow about. She acknowledged that there are challenges for rural areas and that there are ongoing initiatives to promote training and placement of workers, but really said nothing about how the Hawkeye state is performing economically.

There’s plenty to say. Some of it good, some bad, and given the impacts of the President Donald Trump’s trade disputes, lots of ugly.