Jack Hatch

No greater security exists for an Iowa family than that of a decent job that has the potential to lead to a better life. There is no more urgent issue facing policymakers than the rising income inequality that is hollowing out the middle class, reducing overall consumer purchasing power and threatening our economy’s long-term survival.

As more and more economic power is concentrated in the hands of a few, Iowans question whether our economic system will continue to work for them. They wonder whether their children will have the opportunity for a better life than they themselves enjoyed. At a time in which the economy has grown at a slow but steady pace, many families continue to experience economic anxiety.

Five securities: A bold agenda for Iowa

Iowa needs a comprehensive economic policy and plan which lifts individual incomes and produces a business climate that creates higher paying jobs. Progressive values focus on both of these objectives and there are policy proposals that can be enacted right now.

Income inequality driving voter anger

Voter anger around inequality has been building for decades. Despite slow and steady growth after the Great Recession, the average family income for Americans only recently matched its 2007 peak, and losses in the housing market during that time are well documented.

We can turn around Iowa’s anemic growth. Our economic security will be in good hands when all Iowans have a chance to keep more of what they earn, participate in determining their community’s destiny and be part of a growing, vibrant economy as a result.

These are the progressive policies that will minimize income inequality:

Raise the minimum wage: The foundation of economic inequality legislation would be an increase in the minimum wage to $15 per hour over the fastest possible time period. We should tie it to the cost of living. It’s been nine years since Iowa increased the minimum wage, which remains an astonishingly low $7.25 per hour. Elected supervisors in Johnson, Wapello, Linn, Lee and Polk counties are leading the way with proposals to increase the local minimum wage. Today, there is no sense of fundamental fairness in the middle class, and Democrats need to continue to stand up in the public arena.

Improve employee health care: We should implement a 25 percent state income tax credit for Iowa’s small businesses to cover a partial share of premium costs. This is allowed by the Affordable Care Act, and is an example of the right kind of tax break that rewards good corporate citizens.

Provide paid family and medical leave: Iowa is in the top five states for families in which both parents work outside the home. Among other things, that means there’s no one at home to take the kids to the doctor or care for an aging parent. In addition to family obligations, this policy will benefit Iowans when workers with contagious illness, especially in restaurants, do not come to work and infect co-workers or customers. Paid sick days also protect workers from being disciplined or fired when they are too sick to work.

End predatory lending: Too many families are trying to stretch their paychecks using shady payday loans. Predatory lenders are not banks or credit unions. They are out-of-state loan shark organizations that charge 365 percent interest on short-term loans. They prey on cash-strapped families for huge returns. The big banks finance the loan sharks and enable their fleecing of Americans.

Editorial: State must do more to stop payday lending

Ensure good public jobs: We should oppose privatization of state, county and municipal government jobs. Our objective must be to keep quality public jobs public, while emphasizing efficiency.

Strengthen apprenticeship programs: Iowa has a small union trade apprenticeship program that recognizes the necessity to train workers for skilled vocational jobs, and we should expand it. Apprenticeship prepares workers to master occupational skills and undertake productive work for their employer, earn a salary, receive training primarily through supervised work‐based learning, and take academic instruction that is related to the apprenticeship occupation.

Growing our entrepreneurial climate

Iowa’s present economic growth policy is to invest in large corporate interests from a limited pool of applicants. It forces the state’s agency to pick winners and losers. Not only can a top-down approach be clunky and ill-fitting, it actually can be counterproductive to the success of the vision people in towns or cities have for themselves and their future. This is especially true at the state level where competing economic interests are made up of very urban and very rural communities. Managing growth across the diversity of our state requires more involvement from local communities.

Energize small towns and city neighborhoods to drive growth: We can begin to nurture our small towns and city neighborhoods by restructuring all of the departments in state government to favor regionalism in their approach.

As a state we will find our best ideas when we allow communities to determine their own destiny, whether attracting jobs, enhancing culture, improving infrastructure or preserving history. State agencies picking winners and losers do not build a better state. The 2013 commercial property tax bill and the excessive tax credits to fertilizer plants like Orascom are two of the best examples of the state picking big corporations with little benefit to our state economy.

We should harness and promote the power of Iowans’ ideas and encourage innovation through a competitive process in which communities compete for state resources in a manner similar to the Vision Iowa program under Gov. Tom Vilsack. We should build an economy that leverages the strength of Iowa’s small-business entrepreneurs and their communities.

Establish an Iowa Creative Growth Fund: We need to increase investment in technology and creative industries in communities across the state using the principles of flexible regional management described above. Through this initiative, we should re-engage our towns and cities large and small. We should invest in a creative economy that attracts young professionals back to our cities and rural counties to build businesses by using incubators, favorable tax policy, housing and entertainment centers.

Can vacant buildings and the arts help save small towns?

Grow the Technology Prairie: We should partner with the state’s best economic development tools — Iowa’s universities, community colleges and technology-focused private companies — to build communities that will attract and retain the best and brightest Iowans. We should lay the groundwork to engage and attract startup companies by promoting a technology-oriented workforce, investing in training programs, building the teaching talent in our public schools and colleges, and creating an investment fund of private capital that makes use of tax credits.

A stronger Iowa

These objectives will increase family income, strengthen our state’s economy and attract the kind of employers that will help build an economic foundation for the long term.

What Iowans want is not more rhetoric that will sound good for the next election, but rather a bold economic agenda that will actually change the way Iowa works and earn back the trust of working middle class families who have come to believe our hearts are elsewhere.

JACK HATCH is a former state senator and Democratic candidate for governor. More of his "Five Securities" will appear this fall in the Register. Contact: jack@hatchdevelopment.com