(Radio Iowa) – State officials say the latest report shows the closure of Tyson’s pork processing plant in Perry has had little effect on the state’s overall unemployment rate. Iowa’s unemployment rate was 2.8% in July, unchanged for the fourth consecutive month. Jesse Dougherty, a spokesman for Iowa Workforce Development, said less than half of the nearly 1400 workers who lost their jobs when the Tyson plant closed in June applied for jobless benefits in July. “We do know that there was around 200 that transferred to other Tyson plants. Some workers took time off. Some returned to their home country and have plans to return back to the area. Others we do know have found some jobs in similar fields,” Dougherty said. “We can’t tell exactly what that number is yet.”

Tyson was the largest employer in Perry. Tyson cited financial struggles within the pork industry as the main reason for closing the plant. The state set up a transition center at the plant to help the Tyson workers find another job and Dougherty said his agency is still evaluating data about how many are now employed elsewhere. “We don’t have quite the full picture of that yet,” Dougherty said. “…Layoffs are always a difficult situation, but because this was announced in March, we do think we were able to lessen some of that impact.”

About half the employees lived in Perry and the rest commuted to the work at the plant and Dougherty said that’s perhaps another factor in the lower than expected number of unemployment claims. “And I do think Perry does benefit from the fact that you’re also in between the Des Moines metro and Ames,” he said. “That has also helped a little bit.”

Today’s report shows there were about a thousand more Iowans receiving unemployment benefits in July compared to June. Dougherty said the unemployment rate stayed steady because jobs were added in some sectors of the economy. “We actually did have some smaller gains in non-durable goods factories. They were a lot smaller than the losses in Tyson, but they did offset that a little bit,” Dougherty said, “and we also had some gains in education and health care and then also leisure and hospitality.”

The sector that includes leisure, hospitality, entertainment and recreation businesses in Iowa added about 500 jobs in July. “Even though that has been hard hit across the country, it is a good indicator of spending,” Dougherty said. The education and health care sectors are lumped together in the monthly report and added 700 jobs. “Nursing and residential care facilities — that was most of the 700,” Dougherty said.

The total number of Iowans in the workforce has dropped in the past year, however. There were over 21,000 fewer Iowans working last month compared to July of 2023. The number of construction jobs in Iowa has declined by over 3000 since March and in July alone Iowa’s manufacturing sector shed 800 jobs.

(Radio Iowa) – The chairman of the Franklin County Republican Central Committee Larry Sailer is strongly condemning the content of flyers placed on the doors of Hispanic businesses in Hampton earlier this week. “To me, it’s a bit of a hate crime, and I just strongly condemn it. As chair of the Franklin County Republican Party, there’s just no room for this. It’s just a way to try to divide people, and that’s really not what we did now in small town, Iowa, we work pretty well together,” he says.

The flyers read in part: U-S-A Illegal Immigrant Hunting Permit, no bag limit and tagging not required and the bottom of the flyer reads: Trump 2024.

“People know what’s going on. This poster didn’t do either party, any party, any good, just not how we operate. We want to operate on the issues. Have a discussion. Talk to everybody,” Sailer says. Franklin County Democratic Party Chairperson Catherine Crooks has been asked for a comment, but has returned a call.

(Creston, Iowa) – Officials with Creston Police Department said at around 8-a.m. today (Thursday), they took a report of a shooting incident. Authorities say the victim drove themselves to Greater Regional Medical Center. A report on their condition was not immediately released. A person of interest in the incident turned himself in to law enforcement at around 10-a.m.

According to a Facebook post from Greater Regional Health in Creston, the facility was placed on lockdown at 8 a.m. on advice from police. The center said there was no threat to employees, patients or visitors at the time and that police felt it was an isolated incident. At around 9-a.m. Creston schools and Southwestern Community College also went on lockdown. The lockdown was lifted at around 10-a.m.

Additional information is currently not available.

(Radio Iowa) – A report from the National Council on Aging and the Urban Institute finds few Iowans 65 and older are enrolled in public benefit programs for which they’re eligible. It found 34 percent of eligible Iowa seniors are enrolled in the Medicare Savings Program, 27 percent in Supplemental Security Income, and just 17 percent in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. Jen Teague, at the National Council on Aging, says more eligible seniors should sign up. “If we think about SNAP, it really puts money back in somebody’s pocket so that they can go and purchase healthy and nutritious foods,” Teague says. “Things like SSI, Supplemental Security Income, can really help move someone’s income level from a base level to a higher level so that they have more money each month.”

Teague says there are many reasons so few Iowa seniors are taking part, as they may not know about the programs or may not know how to sign up. “We often find people saying, ‘I don’t want to take a benefit from somebody else,'” Teague says, “and what we really want to encourage, what we want people to hear is that these benefits are available for anyone who’s eligible and it’s not taking it away from someone else.”

The data show Iowa fares worse than the national average for eligible senior enrollment in all three programs.

(Natalie Krebs, Iowa Public Radio)

DES MOINES, Iowa — Traffic violations will now be more expensive in Des Moines. KCCI says the city rewrote its ordinance to comply with a change in Iowa law. Red light violations increased from $65 to $100. Speeding more than 11 mph over the limit is now a $75 fee. That fine doubles if in a roadwork zone. If you’re caught going more than 26 mph, it is now a $250 fine.