Iowa Senate Democrats

Fighting for a Better Deal for Iowans.

  • Community colleges help workers, economy rebound

    Community colleges are well-positioned to help Iowans and our economy bounce back from the pandemic.

    Since 1964, Iowa’s community colleges have provided education, training and services to students, businesses and communities throughout the state. As times change, so do our community colleges—always adapting to meet local needs.

    This year, the Legislature boosted support that will help our community colleges continue doing just that.

    As businesses and industries look to fully re-open, they’re struggling to find the workers they need to fill well-paying jobs. Iowans may be eager to apply, but often lack the specific skills required. That’s where community colleges come in.

    Looking for a better career? Now is a great time to contact your local community college about current education, training and financial aid opportunities.

    Last Dollar Scholarship

    In particular, you may benefit from a big increase to the state-funded Future Ready Last Dollar Scholarship, which covers a qualifying student’s tuition and fees not met by other federal and state grants and scholarships.

    To be eligible for this scholarship, you must:

    • Be Iowa residents
    • Enroll in an eligible program of study
    • Have applied for all other available financial aid
    • Plan to earn a credential for a high-demand job

    Iowa’s community colleges offer a variety of eligible programs, including welding, building trades, information technology, business and health care careers. Depending on the area of study, you can earn a credential in anywhere from 15 weeks to two years.

    Community college resources

    Learn about all career-training programs eligible for the Last Dollar Scholarship at futurereadyiowa.gov/college-list.

    There’s still time to apply for financial aid for the 2021-2022 school year. Go to studentaid.gov/apply-for-aid, and submit the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) by August 1.

    See what community college leaders had to say on a recent episode of Iowa PBS’ Iowa Press about how they’re helping Iowa students, businesses and our economy right now: youtu.be/xweuAegc3zA.

  • Expanded Child Tax Credit: Boost for Iowans’ pocketbooks starts July 15

    The federal American Rescue Plan is the biggest piece of anti-poverty legislation in more than 50 years. It’s putting money into Iowans’ pocketbooks and lifting thousands of Iowa children out of poverty.

    One of the key features, an expanded  Child Tax Credit, will provide major tax relief for nearly all families:

    • 93% children under 18 qualify. That’s 669,000 Iowa kids.
    • 198,000 Iowa kids under 17 left out of the full $2,000 Child Tax Credit in prior law will benefit.
    • 48,000 Iowa kids under 18 will be lifted above or closer to the poverty line by the expansion.

    How it works

    All working families making up to $150,000 per couple or $112,500 for a single-parent family will get the full Child Tax Credit, which has been expanded to $3,000 per child for kids ages 6-17 and $3,600 per child for kids under 6.

    Starting July 15, payments will be made monthly (via direct deposit for most families and by mail for some)—$250 per child age 6-17 or $300 per child under 6.

    If you filed tax returns for 2019 or 2020, or if you signed up to receive a stimulus check from the IRS, you will get this tax relief automatically. You do not need to do anything.

    If you didn’t make enough to file taxes in 2019 or 2020, you can still get the Child Tax Credit. Families not automatically enrolled in the program can check their eligibility and enroll at irs.gov/credits-deductions/child-tax-credit-non-filer-sign-up-tool.

    Generally, a couple making less than $24,800, a head of household earning less than $18,650 or a single filer making under $12,400 will qualify.

    The tax credit is based on your income for 2021, which are the taxes that get filed in April 2022. The automatic pre-payment feature allows you to receive your tax credit in monthly payments starting July 15. However, if you wish to receive your tax credit in one lump sum, you may decline the advance monthly payments at irs.gov/credits-deductions/child-tax-credit-update-portal.

    Learn more about the largest Child Tax Credit ever at ChildTaxCredit.gov.

    You may not want advance payment on Child Tax Credit

    More help for your pocketbook

    According to an estimate by the Urban Institute, the American Rescue Plan will reduce overall poverty in the U.S. by a third and cut child poverty by more than half. It’s also putting more money into your pocketbook:

    • A third round of economic impact payments of up to $1,400 went to 91% of Iowa adults and 89% of Iowa children this spring.
    • Expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child & Dependent Care Credit.
    • Providing emergency housing and rental assistance.
    • Expanding food stamp benefits.

  • Our COVID Recovery Plan

    Iowans have been through a lot over the last year, particularly with the pandemic. It’s not over yet, but it is time for the Legislature to do all it can to help Iowa build back better, bigger and stronger than ever.

    My focus this session is on a four-part plan to help Iowa rebound from the ravages of the last year. Senate Democrats’ COVID Recovery Plan aims to:

    1. Defeat COVID-19 by rolling out vaccines to all Iowans as efficiently as possible. Our country has surpassed 400,000 deaths and is expected to hit the 500,000-fatality mark in February. With no time to waste, we should use some of the state’s budget surplus to get emergency funding to county health departments to speed up distribution of COVID-19 vaccinations and contact tracing.

    2. Help hurting Iowans. The pandemic has sickened Iowa workers and shuttered businesses throughout the state. The good news is that we have ample resources to:

    • Support struggling small businesses with direct grants and forgivable loans.
    • Help cities, counties and school districts bounce back from a tough year.
    • Assist food banks that are serving an increasing number of Iowans in need.
    • Exempt federal unemployment payments from state taxes.  

    3. Build back better by focusing on critical needs. This includes:

    • Developing an Essential Workers Bill of Rights that guarantees better pay and stronger workplace protections.
    • Keeping local small businesses that are part of the very fabric of our communities.
    • Expanding access to affordable child care throughout the state.
    • Investing in high-speed Internet that will make every corner of Iowa a great place to live, learn and work.

    4. Ensure accountability. An independent, blue-ribbon COVID Commission with representatives from all sectors of our economy should be given broad subpoena and investigative powers. Iowans deserve to know where their hard-earned tax dollars are going as we recover from this pandemic. The knowledge we gain will help us better prepare for future emergencies.

    Senate Democrats are currently putting together the bills that will help achieve the goals of this four-part plan.

    RELATED LEGISLATION

    Vaccinating Iowans

    • Emergency funding to county health departments to speed up distribution of COVID-19 vaccinations and contact tracing {SF 199}.

    Helping hurting Iowans

    • Using our budget surplus and the economic emergency funds to support struggling small businesses on Main Street with direct grants {SF 325}.
    • Support food banks and other efforts  to address growing food insecurity in Iowa {SF 153; SF 157; SF 273}
    • Exempt the first $10,200 in federal and state unemployment payments from state taxes {SF 290}.

    Building Back Better

    • An Essential Workers’ Bill of Rights, including:
    • Requiring employers to provide up to 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave for eligible employees. {SF 137}.
    • Provide hazard pay to essential workers exposed to the risk of COVID-19 {SF 412}.
    • Providing whistleblower protections for employees who file a complaint due to risk of contracting COVID-19 in the workplace {SF 471}.
    • Expanding access to child care {SF 437; SF 177; SF 186}.
    • Expanding access to preschool {SF 189}. 

    Blue-Ribbon COVID Commission

    • The Commission would help us understand state government’s mistakes and failures, investigate negligence or profiteering in the private sector, and show us how to better prepare for future pandemic {SF 519}.

  • Iowans need supplemental food assistance

    Joint Release from State Senator Rob Hogg
    and other Iowa Democratic State Senators*

    A group of Iowa Senate Democrats are calling on the Iowa Legislature and Gov. Reynolds to pass immediate assistance for food and other basic needs as early as possible in the 2021 legislative session.

    “Emergency authorization of Rainy-Day funds for supplemental food assistance will help combat food insecurity, which has tripled for Iowa families with children since the start of the pandemic,” said Senator Zach Wahls, Senate Democratic Leader. “This is more than a rainy day—it’s a thunderstorm.”

    The proposal calls for a multi-million-dollar investment in supplemental food assistance.

    The state finished the 2020 fiscal year with an ending balance of more than $305 million and rainy-day funds of more than $770 million.

    “Supplemental food assistance is needed now because of increased demand due to the coronavirus public health emergency and its resulting economic disruption, the derecho, and other longer-term economic forces that have hampered many Iowans’ ability to meet basic needs,” said Senator Rob Hogg (D-Cedar Rapids). “Food assistance would help Iowa families who are struggling right now. It also would help our community grocery stores, which need more customers, and Iowa farmers who need more markets for their products.”

    The 2021 legislative session convenes January 11, 2021.

    -end-

    *Signing onto this release are Senator-Elect Sarah Trone Garriott (Windsor Heights) and State Senators:

    • Joe Bolkcom (Iowa City)
    • Nate Boulton (Des Moines)
    • Claire Celsi (West Des Moines)
    • Bill Dotzler (Waterloo)
    • Eric Giddens (Cedar Falls)
    • Rob Hogg (Cedar Rapids)
    • Pam Jochum (Dubuque)
    • Jim Lykam (Davenport)
    • Liz Mathis (Hiawatha)
    • Janet Petersen (Des Moines)
    • Herman Quirmbach (Ames)
    • Amanda Ragan (Mason City)
    • Jackie Smith (Sioux City)
    • Zach Wahls (Coralville)

  • Statement on Reynolds’ failed COVID strategy

    JOINT STATEMENT ON GOVERNOR’S FAILED COVID STRATEGY FROMSENATE DEMOCRATIC LEADER ZACH WAHLS AND HOUSE DEMOCRATIC LEADER TODD PRICHARD

    “Governor Reynolds seems shocked that her failed COVID strategy has resulted in thousands of deaths, overcrowded hospitals, unsafe schools, and some of the highest coronavirus infection rates in the country over the past nine months.

    “Her half-measured attempt at a mask mandate will not be enough to make Iowans safer, especially heading into the holiday season. Her actions today are simply too little, too late. Half-measures will only prolong this pandemic and the suffering of Iowans. 

    “The Governor’s latest plan: 

    • Fails to protect our most vulnerable in nursing homes. 
    • Fails to protect the health and safety of educators and students in our schools. 
    • Fails to expand testing and contact tracing in all 99 counties. 
    • Fails to help small businesses and other employers hit hard by the pandemic.

    “The deadly results of her inaction has turned this pandemic into a public health crisis that has devastated our economy. Here is what the Governor should have announced tonight that include the specific recommendations of the White House Coronavirus Task Force:

    • An effective mask mandate. 
    • Proactive and increased testing for teachers, community college students, public sector workers, staff in crowded or congregate settings, all hospital personnel, large private sector employers.
    • Expand and renew Iowa Small Business Relief Grant Program to provide relief grants to bars, taverns and other establishments impacted by COVID-19.
    • Expanded, strategic use of testing in all 99 counties. 
    • Proactive testing must be part of the mitigation efforts inclusive of mask wearing, physical distancing, hand hygiene, and immediate isolation, contact tracing, and quarantine.
    • Ensure all nursing homes, assisted living, and elderly care sites have full testing capacity and are isolating positive staff and residents.
    • Ensure all hospitals, including rural hospitals, have access to antivirals, antibodies, PPE, and ventilators.
    • Review testing at universities & ensure appropriate testing and behavior change in the 10 days prior to student departure to hometowns for the holiday season.

     ###

  • Statement on Governor’s latest COVID steps

    Statement from Senate Democratic Leader Janet Petersen 

    “Governor Reynolds’ latest steps to fight COVID are like buying a smoke detector after your house is blazing out of control. 

    “Iowa has one of the highest positivity rates in the nation, making more schools unsafe to hold in-person classes. Hospitals are above capacity for COVID and non-COVID patients. Iowans are finding it difficult to impossible to get tested for COVID. And the death count is spiking. 

    “For eight months, Governor Reynolds has unilaterally led a COVID strategy,  damaging the Iowa economy and leaving business owners and workers at her mercy. If the Governor had listened from day one to health care experts – including the White House Coronavirus Task Force – more Iowans would be alive today and the Iowa economy would be rebounding.”

    -end-

  • The Truth about Iowa Unemployment

    Statement by Senator Herman C. Quirmbach, D-Ames:

    “The headline today from the Reynolds administration of 4.7% unemployment in Iowa wildly underrepresents the dire current unemployment situation in Iowa.  A truer unemployment number would be 12.3%.

    “What the Iowa Workforce Development press release says up top is that there were 76,600 unemployed Iowans this September.  That is up from 48,700 unemployed in September a year ago.  That is a 57. 3% increase in the number of unemployed in just 12 months.  That would be bad enough, but the full story is much worse.

    “Only in the fine print at the bottom of the news release do you get the full picture.  In addition to the 76,600 unemployed workers, there are another 138,400 Iowans who have left the labor force in the last 12 months.  If all those people were also still looking for jobs, the unemployment rate would be 12.3%.

    “Here’s how people quitting looking skews the unemployment number.  The way unemployment is calculated is a little strange.  If you lost your job and are looking for a new one, you are counted as unemployed.  However, if you lost your job and have gotten so discouraged about your prospects that you have given up even looking, you are no longer counted as unemployed.  Indeed, you aren’t even counted as being in the labor force!  You’re called a ‘discouraged worker’ and become invisible to IWD when it computes the unemployment rate.

    “During the year, there is always some degree of churn in the labor force.  Older folks retire.  Young folks get out of school and look for a first job.  New parents leave and then reenter the labor force around the period when their kids are young.  People move in and out of the state.

    “But a loss of 138,400 workers is not normal churn.  That’s a loss of nearly 8% of the workforce—not quite 1 of every 12 workers—in just 12 months!  If job prospects were better, most of them would still be at least looking.

    “The Iowa economy will not recover until we crush the coronavirus.  And that won’t happen until we get serious about masks, widespread testing, and contact tracing.   Instead Governor Reynolds obstinately refuses to follow the White House Coronavirus Task Force recommendation to mandate masks.  With COVID-19 cases surging—nearly 7,700 in the last week, per the New York Times—contact tracing is unmanageable, even if Iowa were seriously trying, which we are not. 

    “Until the Reynolds administration is willing to commit to a serious effort to end the pandemic, Iowa businesses, Iowa consumers, and Iowa workers will continue to suffer.  No amount of rosy press releases and misleading claims will do the trick.”

    -end-

    Senator Quirmbach holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton and taught as an economics professor at ISU for 29 years.

  • Thank you, Iowa workers!

    During a difficult year, Iowans have been asked to do more and they have responded by:

    • Pouring into communities to help those hit by storms and flooding
    • Working overtime—often in risky situations—at front-line jobs during the pandemic
    • Using innovative solutions to continue providing goods and services to their fellow citizens
    • Adjusting how and where they work to limit potentially dangerous circumstances

    This Labor Day, let’s look around and thank those who are working hard in what often feels like thankless times. A special salute and thank goes out to all who have worked during the pandemic and the derecho to help their neighbors, community and state get through the upheaval—the nurses, teachers, utility workers, factory laborers, first responders and other front-line workers.

    Under Republican control of state government since 2017, many Iowa workers have faced hard times. Laws that protected them have been watered down or eliminated, making it harder for them to get ahead. This includes overturning laws that brought Iowans better wages, safer working conditions and a stronger economy, and replacing them with policies and tax benefits that favor big businesses and special interests.

    Even before the hardships of 2020, Iowa wages had stagnated; worker benefits had been cut; and income inequality was growing. Many families have a much harder time making ends meet than they did a few years ago.

    For example, a report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition shows that on average Iowans today must earn $15.46 an hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment at the state’s fair market rent rate. That’s more than double Iowa’s minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. The difference is even bigger in several Iowa communities. In Iowa City, for example, workers must earn $19.44 per hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment at the local fair market rent rate.  

    Senate Democrats continue to offer solutions. It’s time to put Iowa workers first by restoring and protecting worker rights, expanding job training and apprenticeship programs, providing paid sick and family medical leave, paying living wages, ensuring equal pay for equal work, and investing in child care.

    The best “thank you” we can give hard-working Iowans is real opportunities to get ahead.

  • Iowa is COVID hot spot

    Iowa is officially the worst place in the country—and one of the worst places in the world—for spread of the coronavirus.

    Six months into the pandemic, when many of us thought we might be in the clear, Iowa is in the thick of it with record-high infection rates and mounting deaths.

    In response, the Governor on August 27 closed bars in six counties, including Black Hawk, Johnson, Linn, Polk and Story. This is another half-hearted move that is preventing Iowa from getting the coronavirus under control.

    Governor Reynolds opened the state too fast, failed to follow the advice of public health experts, and continues to tie the hands of local leaders. Because of unreliable and inconsistent data from the state, we’re in a seemingly endless cycle that is hindering efforts to safely and sustainably open our economy and schools.

    To fill the void, organizations are stepping in to share the information they are collecting.

    For example, the Iowa State Education Association, in partnership with Iowa Covid-19 Tracker, has released a statewide tracking system for Iowa’s K-12 schools. Parents, teachers and school administrators can report COVID-19 cases, and families and community members can track what’s happening. To report information or see where cases have been confirmed, go to iowacovid19tracker.org/covid-19-in-our-schools.

    The Iowa Board of Medicine has also become more vocal in advocating for stronger measures to prevent spread of the coronavirus. In line with recommendations by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), they’re pushing for masks in public areas and all situations where it’s difficult to maintain distance.

    Let’s all do our part:

    • Wear a mask in public
    • Keep your distance from others
    • Wash your hands frequently
    • Stay home when sick

    New regulations and relief for bars

    The Department of Inspections and Appeals (DIA) has published FAQs to answer questions about bar closures in six counties (Black Hawk, Dallas, Johnson, Linn, Polk and Story) under the Governor’s August 27 proclamation. The order is in effect through September 20.

    To file a COVID-related complaint about a bar or restaurant, go to stateofiowa.seamlessdocs.com/f/abd_complaint.

    For more information, visit the Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division website, email education@iowaabd.com or call 515-281-7400.

    Through federal CARES Act funding, grants are available to impacted businesses. Applications will be accepted September 10-24 for one-time $10,000 grants to assist with short-term cash flow. Eligible businesses must be in good standing with the Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division, the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals, and the Iowa Department of Revenue.

    For complete details and to apply, go to iowaeconomicdevelopment.com/Business/business-disruption.

  • 2020 Session Wrap-up