Swenson: Jobs are growing, pay is not

September 4, 2018
News

David SwensonDavid Swenson, associate scientist, was interviewed about the failure of Iowa's wages to rise despite the state's lowest unemployment rate in nearly two decades. The story was picked up by several media outlets.

“By most measures that we usually care about, the Iowa economy looks like it’s doing really well right now. There’s low unemployment, so a lot of people are holding down jobs,” said David Swenson. “It’s the kind of economy that we would expect to produce some things like rising wages, and businesses normally would have to be working to attract employees and keep them. But we’re not actually seeing that right now, which is kind of mysterious.”

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Swenson was also interviewed for a story appearing in the Des Moines Register and the Press-Citizen on state earnings.

"On average, there is some rise in pay beyond inflation, but not much, especially given the very low unemployment rates in much of the state," Swenson said. "I guess I would call it an expected result, given the overall stagnation in much of the state’s rural economy and the depressed farm sector."

 

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