Senate Democratic Leader Zach Wahls, 12/9/21

The biggest challenge facing the Iowa Legislature’s 2022 session is the Kim Reynolds Workforce Crisis.

In Iowa manufacturing, health care, education, our service industries…everywhere across our state there just aren’t enough workers.

And yet, too many Iowans are still leaving for better opportunity and better jobs in other states.

This disconnect should concern everyone.  An economy that doesn’t have enough workers or enough opportunity for hardworking Iowans is fundamentally broken.

Remember that before the pandemic, local Iowa chambers of commerce were telling legislators that they had three issues: workforce, workforce, and workforce.

Two years later, the Reynolds Workforce Crisis has only gotten worse. Iowa has more job openings than people without jobs, and there are fewer Iowans working today than nearly a decade ago before Kim Reynolds took office.

Kim Reynolds’ workforce crisis is negatively impacting virtually every industry in Iowa – especially health care. The Kim Reynolds Workforce Crisis is driving up health care costs for all Iowans and making it harder for Iowans to get critical and timely medical care when we need it.

The Iowa Republican agenda is driving working people, and especially young people, out of Iowa, and is repulsive to businesses and investors who might be looking at starting a new business in Iowa.

During the 2022 session, Senate Democrats will tackle this issue head on. We have an agenda to solve the Kim Reynolds workforce crisis and fix Iowa’s economy.

 We know how to attract more workers and employers to Iowa.  We will directly respond to the real-world concerns raised by Iowa’s business and community leaders.

Senate Democrats will focus on:

• expanding career and technical education, and apprenticeships
• making child care more available and affordable throughout Iowa
• expanding broadband
• fully funding public and higher education
• increasing Iowa’s affordable housing 
• and other steps to get Iowa’s economy back on its feet.

We will press the Reynolds Administration to go beyond toothless commissions and committees and instead take full advantage of the new federal investments in infrastructure, health care, child care, and education in President Biden’s infrastructure and Build Back Better bills.

Unlike Iowa Republicans, Senate Democrats believe in Iowa’s future, and we have a plan to make it happen.

Republicans are focused on their latest culture war distraction. They don’t have a plan to solve Kim Reynolds Workforce Crisis, so they’re trying to distract folks with new extremist ideas like banning books and jailing teachers and librarians.

Let me tell you – when current and prospective teachers see headlines like that, it only accelerates the Reynolds Workforce Crisis.

Iowa business leaders have repeatedly told Statehouse committees that these red meat Republican culture wars cause people and businesses to leave Iowa, and they make people think twice about whether or not they want to relocate to our state. 

Iowa Republicans refused to listen, and that helped create and accelerate the Reynolds Workforce Crisis.

We’ve got to set aside the red meat culture wars and focus instead on growing Iowa’s economy, putting more money into the pockets of working Iowans, and rebuilding Iowa’s reputation as a great place to live and raise a family.

That’s how Senate Democrats will take on Iowa’s number one problem: the Kim Reynolds Workforce Crisis.

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December 2, 2021 News Conference

I’m Senator Pam Jochum from Dubuque. I want to talk a little bit today, about Build Back Better and investing in Iowa’s direct care workers. It’s one of many ways that Build Back Better will improve Iowa’s healthcare system.

It’s long past time to show how much they are valued as essential health care workers. As many of you know that I had an adult child, a daughter, Sarah, who had intellectual disabilities I know firsthand how important the direct care workforce is in our state.

Hiring enough direct care workers has been and continues to be one of Iowa’s biggest health care challenges.

That’s because all over Iowa, from cities to rural communities we are struggling to hire and retain enough direct care workers to meet the needs of the people who live there. This isn’t a political issue, it’s a statewide healthcare issue. We simply do not have enough skilled workers, and those workers we do have, we are having a hard time retaining them. Iowa’s growing shortage of health care workers has been talked about for years at the statehouse.

A shortage of workers means that too many adults and children with disabilities lose their independence. Just yesterday a mom called whose son needs 24/7 care. He lives at home and needs direct care workers to come to their home while she works. She cannot find the workers and cannot work. She’s burned through her savings account and maxed out her credit cards. She needs to work.

This is just simply wrong.

Build Back Better is going to provide Iowa with an opportunity to finally begin to solve this long-standing problem if we chose to act. It will help us with the critical funding that is needed to improve the skills and the pay of Iowa’s direct care workers.

I want to thank Congresswoman Cindy Axne for helping to pass Build Back Better in the U.S. House of Representatives.

I urge all Iowans to press Iowa’s U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst to support BBB in the U.S. Senate.

Senators Grassley and Ernst need to know that Build Back Better will improve the care of our aging parents in the local nursing home, it will help to maintain the independence of our neighbors and friends with a disability, it will honor the service of our Veterans, with a disability, and it will raise the pay of hardworking direct care workers who are part of the very backbone of our health system and our economy.

To take a line from “Field of Dreams”—If you pay them, they will come.

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(Nov 11, 2021 statement by Iowa Senate Democratic Leader Zach Wahls)

Yesterday’s vote by UAW members reminds us all of the power of solidarity: We all do better when we *all* do better.

Striking Deere employees earned a hard-fought victory — Iowa Senate Democrats were proud to stand with them in this righteous fight and to join them on the picket line.

These workers and their families fought and sacrificed not just for themselves but for each other and for future workers.

We’re at a pivotal moment for our state and our country to fight for a fair economy that works for every family. Not only have working people taken this important stand, President Biden, Representative Cindy Axne and Congressional Democrats worked together to pass the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal, and as a result, more than $5 billion is headed towards Iowa – the biggest investment in our state since the New Deal.

This is our chance to fix substandard roads, repair unsafe bridges, bring broadband access to every community, remove lead pipes to protect drinking water, and so much more.

In my Senate District alone, which includes Johnson, Cedar, and Muscatine Counties, there are over 68 bridges that are structurally deficient, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

This investment in our infrastructure means safer communities and more Iowa jobs — good jobs that Iowans can raise a family on. We cannot overstate the impact on Iowa of thousands of good jobs, jobs that pay the prevailing wage instead of the minimum wage, jobs that include decent benefits.

These NEW jobs will be a SHARP contrast to what Governor Reynolds and Republican legislators have offered working Iowans since they’ve been running things at the Statehouse, which is nothing.

Despite having total control at the Statehouse, the Governor and Republican legislative leaders have failed to take meaningful steps to:

• Expand the path to good jobs with better career and technical education and apprenticeships

• Ensure paid family leave

• Expand access to affordable housing

• Make child care more affordable for working families

The bipartisan infrastructure and jobs act – which was passed overwhelmingly with Democratic votes in the House – is our state’s opportunity to change direction.

The bottom line is that while Governor Reynolds, Speaker Grassley and Majority Leader Whitver are pointing fingers and playing the blame game, President Biden, Rep. Axne and other Democratic Leaders are actually getting things done for working Iowans.

-Democrats showed up to support striking John Deere workers, Republicans cowered and stayed silent.

-Democrats passed a massive investment in rebuilding Iowa’s infrastructure and creating new jobs, Republicans opposed it.

-Democrats have a plan to fix supply chain issues, lower prices, and get our economy back to normal. Republicans are happy to send angry tweets and press releases, but have no plan to lower prices for middle-class families.

-Democrats are laser focused on boosting paychecks for hardworking Iowans.

The Republican Party is weak, corrupt, and has no ideas how to actually solve the problems hardworking Iowans face every day. I look forward to seeing what the President and Rep. Axne will do next to help Iowa build back better!

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