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.
The vast majority of small business owners participating in a 2010 University of Northern Iowa survey are optimistic that the state is recovering from economic recession, and roughly one-third plan to hire new staff members this year.
More than 70 percent of small business owners believe that the economy is now moving in the right direction, and 78 percent feel that Iowa is a good state for starting a business. And, when compared to the 2009 annual survey, business starts have increased by 11 percent and business expansions increased by 7 percent during 2010. In addition, at least half of the small businesses in Iowa are planning for new capital investment during 2011.
Despite such optimism, however, small business owners added only modest numbers of new jobs during the past year — a trend that is expected to continue in 2011 as owners focus on marketing efforts to boost sales. The sector, according to respondents, added the equivalent of 174.5 full time jobs during 2010.
Taxes continue to be the item of most concern to small businesses, with slack sales, inflation, government regulation and health insurance costs rounding out the top five.
When asked to identify critical needs, business owners pointed to opportunities for financing and marketing/advertising as their key concerns.
The survey, which was completed by UNI’s MyEntre.Net entrepreneurship support system, is a composite of 459 responses gathered from total population of 8,500 business owners who participate in the program. The responses were collected between Dec. 15, 2010 and Jan. 15, 2011, and the overall survey holds 4.45 margin of error.
Of the respondents, which represented 91 out of the state’s 99 counties, slightly more than half (53 percent) were doing business in rural counties.
The summary report is available below.
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