The Iowa Workforce Development released its latest jobs report for the month of December. IWD reports Iowa only added 5,200 jobs last month.
Iowa’s workforce crisis is significantly worse than national labor shortages. Under the failed leadership of Governor Kim Reynolds, fewer Iowans are working now than when she was first elected ten years ago. And Oxfam America ranks Iowa as one of the worst states to work in the country, with wage and labor policies that harm working families.
“Instead of offering solutions to raise wages for working Iowans, Reynolds continues to sell us out, introducing massive tax cuts for corporations and millionaires,” said Charlie Wishman, President of the Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO. “Republican policies have driven out workers from nearly every industry and exacerbated the Reynolds Workforce Crisis.”
Meanwhile, Reynolds says Iowa’s unemployment benefits have taken away people’s desire to work. Her effort to force Iowans into low-paying jobs doesn’t work, according to the research, it fails to pull a significant number of Iowans into the workforce. In fact, Corporate Kim Reynolds and the Republican-led legislature are driving workers out of Iowa.
“Governor Reynolds has not made Iowa a place where more people want to live, work, raise a family, or start a business,” said Tanya Street, a Cedar Rapids small business owner. “The legislature needs to start investing in working families, increasing wages and making companies pay their fair share.”
