Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg said during a campaign stop in Fort Dodge Saturday that he would change how the U.S. economy is measured.

Buttigieg asked a crowd of more than 300 people gathered at the Fort Museum and Frontier Village Opera House to imagine the sun coming up the day after Donald Trump is no longer president.

And he said the sun would come up over an economy that isn’t necessarily working well for the average American.

“It will come up over an economy where they are telling us it’s alright because Dow Jones is looking good,” the former South Bend, Indiana, mayor said. “When a lot of us are wondering when that’s ever going to get to our households and our communities.”

In visiting with Iowans, Buttigieg said he’s learned that some people seem to be working more than one job.

“I’m thinking about a Republican who came to one of my events,” Buttigieg said. “He’s from Bettendorf. He has a full time job, driving for Door Dash on the side. He said this remark that has been sticking with me. He said, ‘everyone has to have a side job these days.’ Everyone has to have a side job these days — as if we were living in a time of national hardship and not an economic recovery.

“It shows you why we need to make sure we do something about an economy where the biggest corporations in the world can make millions of dollars and pay zero in taxes.”

If elected, Buttigieg said he would measure income growth.

“We finally got to make sure the economy actually works for us,” Buttigieg said. “When I’m president, instead of the Dow Jones and the GDP, we are going to measure the right things. In other words, we are going to measure the performance of our economy, not by how the stock market is looking, but first and foremost by the income growth for the 90 percent. If it’s working for us, that’s a good economy.”

Buttigieg, who made one of his last pitches to Fort Dodge area voters ahead of the Feb. 3 Iowa caucuses, favors raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Former state Sen. Daryl Beall, who has publicly endorsed Buttigieg, said the Rhodes scholar “understands infrastructure, economic development and public safety.”

Beall, of Fort Dodge, values a candidate who has served in the military.

“He’s the only candidate who has carried a weapon in war,” Beall said. “It’s time someone with a knowledge of the cost of war is our commander in chief.”

Buttigieg served as a U.S. Navy intelligence officer and was deployed in Afghanistan for seven months in 2014.

In terms of policies, Buttigieg said he would propose an out-of-pocket cap on prescription drugs.

“I am proposing an out-of-pocket cap that doesn’t go above $250 a month,” he said. “I think I’m the only candidate to set a monthly cap.”

Buttigieg added, “Have you ever met someone who waited for surgery or a prescription because the way their insurance is set up? Let’s set that out-of-pocket cap monthly. Take the common sense step of allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices.”

Buttigieg favors what he calls the Medicare for All Who Want It plan, which gives everyone the option of receiving insurance coverage through an affordable public insurance plan.

Near the end of his speech, Buttigieg said being in politics can be exhausting.

“I live and breathe politics and I find it exhausting,” he said.

But he said the opportunity to vote is a chance to “respond to that cynicism and change where we are as a country.”

“This is our chance to turn the page and I am here to make the case for hope in our politics,” he said.