The Dickey Dispatch – February 4th, 2022
by Senator Adrian Dickey
Hello District 41 and next year, District 44!
This week I had many visitors in Des Moines. On Tuesday, I was happy to visit with the Davis County FFA members as they joined hundreds of FFA members from across the state. On Wednesday I met with the Sigourney High School government class as they visited our Capitol to see government in action. I was also able to visit with iJAG members from the Cardinal School District, John Torres, Bailey McElcroy, and Austin McClure. iJAG is a neat initiative where leaders partner with various schools to inform and educate students of the vast variety of options to them after high school. While college is popular for many, iJAG also helps our students become more aware of other trades, military, and service opportunities not always covered in schools. The value of iJAG continues to grow, especially with the huge demand for workforce, especially in the trades and technical professions within our state.
This week I introduced my Iowa workforce re-employment bill. Our state has a responsibility to help our fellow citizens when they find themselves in difficult times of unemployment. However, our current unemployment structure of providing 6 months of benefits and requiring only 2 job searches each week (which are not verified, thus many unemployed receiving benefits do not perform the required job searches) has been in place since the farm crisis of the 1980s.
In today’s economic environment “help wanted” signs are posted everywhere (and where almost every entry level job is paying $15/ hour or more). We must find a more accurate balance for the unemployed individual, those Iowans that continue to work, and to employers, some of whom are watching their business close simply because they can’t find help. As the chairman of the Senate Labor and Business Relations Committee, I am working on addressing this problem.
Current practice may create an incentive to some to stay home by providing 6 months of unemployment benefits. We need an unemployment program reflective of the actual economic and labor market. My “Iowa jobs re-employment plan” overhauls our outdated unemployment plan and provides Iowa’s unemployed with more tools to find work. Some of the key points to accomplishing this are:
When someone applies for “re-employment” benefits, Iowa Workforce Development (IWD) must provide them with a list of employers in a 50 mile radius, that are looking for employees in any of the fields the claimant had worked in previously or any other area of interest that the unemployed individual has expressed an interest.
Moving from 6 months of unemployment benefits to a sliding scale of 12-16 weeks. The weeks provided will be based on a scale that moves with the unemployment level in the state. For example, in a labor starving environment such as today, 12 weeks of “re-employment” benefits would be provided. Several years from now if our economy drops and the unemployment level rises, the number of weeks of unemployment benefits will rise as well.
Instead of asking the unemployed individual to do 2 job searches a week, under my plan, they will be required to do anywhere from 4-6 job searches each week (that will be verified by IWD). The amount of job searches required will again be based on the number of available jobs in Iowa. The more available jobs in our state, the more job searches will be required.
Iowa Workforce Development has 16 different “tools” that were created to help an unemployed individual find greater success in finding a new job. These tools range from interview skills training to resume assistance. Under my plan, an individual receiving “re-employment” benefits will be required to do one of every week, again with the intentions of helping that individual find a job.
There are many other components in my bill. However, these policy changes are just a few of the key points in our Senate Labor Committee’s “Iowa re-employment plan.” The goal is to assist Iowans temporally out of work and to assist our employers in filling the countless jobs that currently need filled in our state.
As our local Republican county caucuses take place this Monday evening, I encourage all of you to attend. I hope to make as many of them that I can, however with 5 different counties to represent and approx. 8-10 caucuses in each county, attending all in one night will be difficult.
Thank you!
