(Radio Iowa) – Iowa’s economy improved slightly during August, along with the Midwest as a whole, according to a monthly survey of supply managers in Iowa and eight other states. Despite the minor gains, Creighton University economist Ernie Goss says the region’s economy is moving sideways, as it’s been seeing similar gains and losses for months.

Goss says tariffs enacted by the Trump administration — and by other nations in retaliation — are slowing everything down. “Tariffs are having some significant impacts and I think the impacts are, it’s just spreading across the globe and it’s not just the U.S., it’s other nations and it’s hurting the economy, hurting the U.S. economy, hurting the global economy,” Goss says. “Four out of five report tariffs pushing prices higher, not significantly higher, but higher.”

Ernie Goss (Creighton University photo)

The survey shows weakening confidence about the future, as Goss says only one in ten supply managers expect improving economic conditions for their firm over the next six months. The survey showed employment losses for the region during August for the fifth straight month, as Goss says the Producer Price Index for the month rose.

“That’s been growing, but it’s not being passed on to the consumers. So where is it going? It’s cutting profit margins,” Goss says. “In other words, businesses are absorbing the price increase, the tariff increase and also the importers and the distributors, and of course the exporters, that’s outside the U.S. exporting into the U.S.”

Federal reports say Iowa’s manufacturing sector exported more than $7-billion dollars in goods for the first half of 2025, compared to just over $8-billion for the same period in 2024. That’s a drop of nearly 11-percent. Goss says the nation saw an increase in non-farm jobs of less than one percent, while manufacturing alone lost about 13,000 jobs. “The region is actually, over the last year, I’m talking about year-over-year, has gained some jobs but you wouldn’t know it,” Goss says. “We’re just not seeing enough growth in manufacturing jobs and it’s showing up in the manufacturing economy.”

On the survey’s zero-to-100 scale, growth neutral is 50. The survey says Iowa’s overall Business Conditions Index for August stayed below growth neutral, but rose to nearly 46 from just under 44 in July. Across the region’s agricultural sector, Goss says there’s concern as bumper crops will only push prices south, while lowering net farm income.