These are strange economic times.

Bankruptcy filings are at record lows, even as the numbers of homeless and food-insecure Iowans climb. 

Those contradictory trends are just two of the things I noticed on a drive-by review of the Iowa economy.   

As I looked around, it seemed pretty obvious that Iowa has weathered the pandemic well. 

The state’s farm economy is in good shape with record-high prices for corn and soybeans. And weather permitting, it could stay that way for some time, or at least as long as Ukrainian farmers are shut out of world markets by the Russian invasion. 

The state’s employment statistics also look good. 

The numbers of Iowans working in manufacturing, retail and finance – three key sectors – have all rebounded to be at or near pre-pandemic levels. 

The only industry segment that has not rebounded at all is information services, which includes workers at newspapers, magazines and other businesses involved in gathering and providing information. 

Employment at newspapers and other information providers has actually gotten worse since the bottom of the pandemic recession, continuing a trend that predates current health concerns by decades. 

According to the state’s labor market information, there were 33,500 Iowans working in information services in 2008. That number fell to 20,900 at the end of 2019 before the pandemic took hold. Four months later in April 2020, which was the bottom of the pandemic recession in Iowa, employment had declined to 18,800. And by this fall, it had dropped again to 18,300.

Other segments of our economy have recovered, but not fully. Most notable is health services. Iowa’s health service employers lost 19,500 positions during the pandemic and have only replaced 12,300 of a workforce that stood at 198,000 before COVID.

Iowa’s monthly employment numbers are a snapshot of the economy and do little to reveal deep-seated structural problems that fuel inflation fears and climate concerns. Nor do they reflect educational problems that are producing lower test scores across the board from elementary schools through graduate-level programs. 

The amount of damage caused by inflation varies widely depending on income. Higher food and gas prices wreak havoc on low-income families, increasing demand at food pantries across the state and contributing to homeless problems.  

During the past year, growing awareness of climate change and the problems it causes has spread into Iowa’s rural communities. 

Farmers are concerned because drought causes transportation problems on the Mississippi River. When water levels get too low, barge traffic slows and even stops, increasing transportation costs, which eat into farm profits. 

Crop scientists may have figured out ways to make corn and soybean seed more drought-resistant, but there isn’t much they can do to refill a river when widespread drought strikes. 

Another concern is the threat of a new recession. Many economists now expect a nationwide recession to occur sometime in 2023. And it could come sooner, rather than later. 

That would not be good for Iowa, where cumulative growth numbers went negative at the end of 2021 and had not bounced back as of June 30, the most recent date for which state-level data is available. 

One way to read the Iowa numbers is that, following the sharp downturn that accompanied the pandemic shutdowns in 2020, unprecedented federal spending helped Iowa businesses bounce back in early 2021 with growth that has not been matched in more recent quarters. 

If that’s the case, new federal spending on infrastructure, along with strong farm profits this year – assuming we can get crops to market on the Mississippi River – should keep Iowa businesses growing in 2023, even if the rest of the country experiences a recession. 

That’s pretty much what happened during the late 1970s when world demand for Iowa farm products led many to believe that Iowa’s farm economy was recession-proof.

And it was, until changing conditions in world markets led us into the farm crisis of the 1980s.