In the event that you see a Republican Iowa elected official speaking at a Labor Day rally Monday, let me know what they said. Because if they've stood by the side of Gov. Kim Reynolds and members of the Legislature's Republican majority, they'll have little to brag about on the state of Iowa workforce.
Let's start with cutting unemployment benefits in the last legislative session. Last week added insult to the injury by cutting the unemployment taxes that businesses pay into that fund, to their lowest level in two decades.
More:Taxes on businesses will drop after Iowa spent millions in federal aid to bolster unemployment fund
And that was after Reynolds had spent more than $725 million in pandemic funds to keep those businesses' taxes from going up.
As of last month, laid-off workers are seeing a reduction of 10 weeks in their unemployment pay, which now stops at 16 weeks. The new law also requires them to accept a job for less pay than their previous one, even after just one week of being on unemployment!
What did the governor have to say about these cuts when she proposed similar ones in her last Condition of the State address? She lectured workers about work being "degraded" by their slackness.
"When idleness is rewarded with an unemployment check, work begins to seem optional rather than fundamental," she said. "Then society begins to...
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