Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
More than 30,000 Iowans are at risk of losing their unemployment benefits early next year unless Congress intervenes, according to a new study by the National Employment Law Project.
The study found that 10,716 Iowans will exhaust their state unemployment benefits in the first quarter of 2010. Another 19,561 who have received one of three levels of federal extensions will not be allowed to continue in the program.
Mike Lillis, who covers congress for The Washington Independent, reported Tuesday that by March around 3.2 million people across the nation could lose unemployment benefits if Congress doesn’t renew the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act this month. Lawmakers passed an extension of emergency jobless benefits last month but did not solve the underlying problem.
Hardest hit would be California, where the filing deadline threatens to drop nearly 589,000 beneficiaries in the first three months of next year, according to the analysis, conducted by the National Employment Law Project (NELP), an advocacy group. Other states in line to suffer the greatest drop-offs are Florida (314,000), New York (239,000), Texas (196,000), Illinois (193,000) and Michigan (183,000). Ten states are facing dropped enrollment topping 100,000 beneficiaries, NELP found.
The deadline threatens to shift much higher costs onto states, squeezing budgets at the same time that states are least able to shoulder the addition burden. The NELP analysis is designed to hike the pressure on Congress to offer additional federal help.
In October, Iowa Workforce Development reported around 113,000 Iowans were unemployed.
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