David Swenson, research scientist, was interviewed for a March 9 Daily Iowan story, "The state of Iowa could lose millions of dollars without its first-in-the-nation caucuses, according to FEC campaign spending data."
David Swenson, a research scientist in the Department of Economics at Iowa State University, published a study in April 2008 following that year’s caucuses, in which he argued that the event is more important in terms of exposure on the national level than it is for long-lasting economic stimulation in Iowa.
“There is a discernible, although only modest boost to the state’s overall economic activity for a time,” Swenson said in the report. “Nearly $7.34 million in labor incomes to 229 jobs are substantial by any measure, but one must remember that this is a quadrennial event [presidential caucuses]: the annualized values would be much lower when divided by four.”
Jon Diaz, Reporter, WOI TV, on the Child Tax Credit portion of the American Recovery Plan and its implications for Iowa families and its impact on Iowa’s economy.
"This is going to pump a lot of money into households in Iowa," said professor Swenson, a research scientist and economist at Iowa State University. "It's the kind of money that households are going to spend," said Swenson. "They're going to spend it on childcare; they're going to spend it on support for their families. It's the kind of money that gets spent locally."
Andrej Matisak, Pravda newspaper, Slovakia, on the pros and cons of the American Rescue Plan.
Swenson was also a guest March 12 on Iowa Public Television’s “Iowa Press” program to discuss the American Rescue Plan’s value to the nation and Iowa.
Swenson says there should have been a formula that took into account several factors, not just unemployment rates, for distributing that 350 billion dollars to states and local governments. Swenson says the package, overall, covers a wide range of categories that weren’t adequately addressed in the first two pandemic-relief packages.
And was quoted in a March 12 WOI-TV story, "Work from home revolution, businesses fight to survive, vaccine hope | COVID Cause & Effect, Ep. 6."
"A typical recession, we'll go into a recession and then slowly we'll climb back out. So, it's more of a U-shaped recovery. This recession was different. This recession... the Iowa economy was plugging along here, and then in March, it started to go down.
But it declined sharply. So this economy just really went down. The people who were talking about a V-shaped recession, and they were hoping in bouncing back. But our economy did this and it sort of flattened out instead of a V-shaped recession."
March 16 Daily Iowan, "Iowa City businesses adapt to pandemic year’s changing markets."
“More than a third of the lost jobs that we’re still enduring in the state are located in leisure and hospitality,” Iowa State University Professor of Economics David Swenson said. “So, there’s no other way to spin it. It’s just bad.”
“Basically what we want to do is climb back to where we were, which was sort of at a stasis, just kind of holding on,” he said. “And if we can do that in the next nine months to a year, that’s about as good as one could hope for here in Iowa.”