The two-minute economy
When it comes to Iowa's economic wellbeing, as with football, all four quarters count
If the final two minutes of a football game were the only ones that counted, Chicago Bears fans might be a lot happier.
The Bears thrilled fans during the 2025-26 season by coming from behind to win seven games in the final two minutes. It was an amazing feat, but it still wasn’t enough to get the Bears to the Super Bowl. As any football fan knows, all 60 minutes count, not just the ones when your team excels.
This, apparently, is a lesson lost on Kim Reynolds.
Iowa’s governor has been bragging lately about the state’s 3rd quarter economic performance. Preliminary data released last week by the federal government said our GDP grew at a 5% annual rate for the quarter. The previous quarter it grew by 3.7%. This prompted Reynolds to say, “Iowa’s economy continues to rise because we’ve created a culture of growth, opportunity, investment, and innovation.”
If that’s the case, you have to wonder what happened to that culture of growth and opportunity in the previous two quarters when our economy shrunk. Or for the last eight years.
Again, as all those wistful Bears fans know—OK, I’m one of them—you can’t just count the parts of the game when you do well. All four quarters count.
This is true for Iowa’s economy, too. Especially since Reynolds has been the team quarterback.
Real GDP growth has barely limped along on her watch. And when it comes to jobs, Iowa has only added an average 3,100 per year since Reynolds took the ball. In the previous eight years, annual job growth averaged 13,500, or more than four times as many.
Even when the Reynolds’ economy has grown, it’s been temporary. When she took office in 2017, Iowa’s economy also saw two pretty good quarters. Then the bottom dropped out. In four of the following five quarters, Iowa’s GDP plunged into negative territory.
Much the same happened in 2023, when two decent quarters were followed by the economy cratering in four of the next five.
In 15 of the 34 quarters Reynolds has been governor, our economy not only failed to grow but it actually shrunk.
This kind of record doesn’t just keep you out of the Super Bowl, it can get a quarterback fired.
Even with our recent bump, things aren’t looking too good for Team Iowa. We haven’t seen 4th quarter estimates for 2025 yet. But a panelist at an economic forum recently described the outlook for 2026 as “steady, but strained.”
Just look at Iowa’s farm sector. The Des Moines Register reported recently crop prices are projected to be “far lower” in 2026 than production costs. Which is not a good sign for any of us.
“It’s very similar to last year, in that there really isn’t a crop you can point to and go, ‘There’s a profit opportunity’,” Iowa State University agricultural economist Chad Hart told the Register. “Everything is underwater right now.”
Not only is the farm sector hurting but overall, it’s the rich who are making out best in our “K-shaped economy.” (Which is a popular way these days of saying “the poor and middle-class are getting the shaft, while the wealthy take home the dough.”)
Not that you heard any of this at Trump’s big MAGA rally in Clive on Tuesday. Politico reported Trump said, “This has been the most dramatic one-year turnaround of any country in history in terms of the speed.”
This is nonsense in terms of the accuracy.
Regular Iowans know our economy is struggling. At least it is for most people whose paychecks are tied to the economy, as opposed to Randy Feenstra, Mariannette Miller-Meeks and the rest of Iowa’s congressional delegation whose jobs are tied to staying in Trump’s favor, so much so that they refuse to oppose his tariffs, which are badly damaging our state.
A recent study said 96% of tariff costs in 2024 and 2025 were heaped onto the shoulders of American consumers and importers, not foreign entities like Trump would have you believe. According to the Wall Street Journal, “rather than acting as a tax on foreign producers, the tariffs functioned as a consumption tax on Americans, the report said.”
Democratic staff of the Joint Economic Committee in Congress recently estimated the average US family paid $1,200 in tariff costs last year. Still, Trump tries to force foreign governments to bend to his will by threatening to impose tax increases on American families. Which is a mighty strange foreign policy, not to mention economic approach.
Who knows, maybe Iowa’s economy will continue to grow. Maybe, unlike in the past, these growth bumps aren’t just temporary. I hope so. Not that it will probably have much impact on Kim Reynolds. The current quarterback of Iowa’s economy is headed for the bench soon. Somebody new will take the ball.
We can only hope, whoever it is, the new quarterback will excel in all four quarters of the game, not just for a few minutes at a time.
The Office Lounge
It’s time for the Office Lounge, the once-per-month Zoom meeting where paid subscribers to this newsletter and others in the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative join to talk and exchange ideas. The meeting this month will be Friday, Jan. 30, at noon. Here is the link.
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I’m a Bears fan, so I appreciate the analogy. But I’ve also seen plenty of premature cheering in Iowa—celebrating when “my team” is ahead after three quarters, much like touting a handful of special-election wins as proof of momentum. The game isn’t over until November 2026, or even until winners are sworn in a year later. One could argue it doesn’t truly count until after the 2028 election.
Stop looking at the GDP, Interest rates, Tariffs, and polls. We have TWO DIFFERENT ECONOMIES. THE WALL STREET ECONOMY AND THE MAIN STREET ECONOMY. TRUMP AND REYNOLDS LIVE IN THE WALL STREET ERA-- RICH AND FAMOUS. THE OTHER 90% ARE LIVING IN THE REAL WORLD, WHERE THEY ARE STRUGGLING EACH MONTH TO PAY THEIR BILLS. COSTS AND EXPENSES CONTINUE TO RISE--WHILE REAL INCOME FALLS FURTHER BEHIND. NOW HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN---THE TOP TEN PER CENT KEEP CHARGING MORE---AND THE 90% HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO KEEP HELPING THE RICH GET RICHER. WE CALL IT THE AMERICAN DREAM.