Creighton University economist Ernie Goss says exports from Iowa manufacturing plants in the first 10 months of 2025 were over $1 billion under the same period in 2024, for a drop of 8.4%.
Goss surveys manufacturers in Iowa and eight other states monthly and while there’s been economic growth in the nation’s midsection, Goss said the labor market is not good. “We’ve really lost jobs almost every month for 2025,” Goss said in a nearly 12 minute video statement accompanying the survey’s release today.
Goss said 25 years ago manufacturing accounted for 14.4% of the economic output from Iowa and eight neighboring states. It’s now 10.3%. “The region has lost 333,000 jobs or almost 20% of its manufacturing base, so it has not been a good 25 years in terms of the number of jobs,” Goss said. “Now in terms of overall output, it has been good, so again the theme here is we’re creating output — GDP — but we’re not a lot of jobs.”
Inflation is “getting tamer,” according to Goss, but he indicated tariffs are creating more uncertainty in the manufacturing sector. “It’s clear that inflationary pressures are coming down. It’s the lowest inflation rate we’ve recorded since December of 2024 and, of course, that’s before the ‘tariff tantrums’ I’ll call it,” Goss said. “…When the president gets out there and says: ‘Well, I’m going to put a tariff here and a tariff there,’ that’s not good for the economy.”
Manufacturing supply managers in Iowa and eight surrounding states expect tariffs to stabilize over the next six months, however, and their economic outlook is at its highest level since Trump took office. Goss calculates a Business Conditions Index for each state in the survey. Iowa’s index increased from December to January and Iowa exports last month were slightly better than in the region’s, but Iowa’s manufacturing economy is not in a growth pattern, according to Goss.