John Winters, associate professor, was interviewed in a June 15 WHO-TV story, "Economists react to end of federal unemployment benefits in Iowa."
“One of the big differences in Iowa relative to the rest of the nation is actually that our unemployment is pretty low,” John Winters, an associate economics professor at Iowa State University, said. “But if you look at where a lot of the job losses, at least from a measurement perspective where the job losses are, it’s that a lot of people have decided to exit the labor force. In other words, not only are they not working but they also decided they’re not going to look for work or you know, try to work at this time.”
Winters says Iowa’s recovery will be slow and gradual, and we won’t see a response from taking away unemployment benefits overnight.