Iowa Ideas: Cost of living in Iowa is challenge for many families

While lower than in many states, the cost of living in Iowa still can be higher than the median income earned in counties around the state — which presents significant challenges for those families.

Nearly 114,000 Iowa families with one full-time worker in the home could not meet the most basic family budget needs without public supports, beyond that for health insurance, according to the latest, annual cost of living report from Common Good Iowa, a progressive-leaning nonprofit fiscal and policy analysis organization.

That is about 15 percent of all working households in the state, according to the report.

“What they need to be looking at, is what is our cost of living in terms of what it takes to get by, and how many people are actually able to make it — and so what is the economy providing in terms of opportunity, and what are our public policies doing in terms of opportunity to help so people can get by?” said Mike Owen, deputy director of Common Good Iowa.

“We know that 1 out of 7 families are having trouble getting by on their earnings alone,” Owen said. “That means that No. 1, jobs aren't paying enough. And No. 2, it’s extra pressure on our public services, work support programs.”

Owen’s colleague at Common Good Iowa, policy analyst Sean Finn, is scheduled to be among the panelists for this month’s Iowa Ideas 2023 session entitled “The Cost of Living Crisis in Iowa.” The annual conference, which is being held virtually, is scheduled for Oct. 12 and 13. The cost of living session is scheduled for 9:40 a.m. Oct. 13. Individuals can register for the free at iowaideas.com.

One of the things at stake when a family struggles to meet its basic needs, Owen said, is that the family’s children often are at risk of falling behind their peers.

“The consequences are that those families are going to fall further behind, that the children in those families are not going to do as well, that they’re going to have less opportunity to succeed,” Owen said. “You have a fixed amount of time to meet the needs of those families, those kids, for it to make a difference for them. … Clearly it is tougher for those families to succeed, for those children to get the opportunity where they can make it on their own.”

Iowa Idea’s policy track also includes discussions on food scarcity, school safety, school choice, public lands, media literacy and navigating culture wars in policy debates.

Media literacy has become increasingly important, Iowa Freedom of Information Council Executive Director Randy Evans said. While information remains critical for Americans to consume, not all the growing sources of information have the consumer’s interests — or the objective truth — in mind, he said.

That has created a media universe that requires a sort of active consumption from the public, Evans said.

“Anybody who’s paying any attention at all to what is swirling around us in the United States these days understands that information and the access to information is crucial,” Evans said. “But it can’t simply be like the drain valve and let the information just flow through you. You have to pay attention to it. You have to analyze it and you have to do your own research. You can’t just simply be a sponge and take what is coming along.”

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The growth of information sources beyond news in newspapers and magazines, and on TV networks and the radio, has made it even harder to be an informed media consumer, Evans said. And there is a distinct danger to incomplete media consumption.

“Being an informed citizen was never an easy task. Back when my hair was the color of Iowa soil and not a snow-covered hilltop, you needed to watch the newscast, you needed to read the newspaper, you had to read magazines, and taking all of this information and digesting it. And now it’s coming at us in ways that are even more rapid and a whole lot more sophisticated,” Evans said. “The pressures on consumers of news, or taxpayers, or just citizens has become much more challenging.

“That’s where the need for ‘media literacy’ comes about, because if people are not paying attention to where the information they’re consuming is coming from, it’s going to be easy to fall victim to those who would prefer to deceive you than to inform you.”

Comments: (515) 355-1300, erin.murphy@thegazette.com