Prices up 3.8% from last year, highest since 2023: Iowa worker news and layoffs for May 14, 2026

Iowa Worker’s Almanac news briefs for May 14, 2026:

• Prices keep rising: Prices are up 3.8% from a year ago, according to this week’s Labor Department report, with gas, other fuel, and housing prices as the big drivers. That’s widening the rich-poor gap even more. Blame the unauthorized war with Iran, which continues to cut off our supplies from the Middle East.
  
• That $12 billion farmer bailout is also being eaten up by rising prices caused by Trump’s war in Iran.
  
• A Boeing worker in Kansas died after falling through crossbeams at the Wichita facility last month, and his labor union is demanding the company put in a better safety plan.
  
• River Hills closes two health care clinics, including one trying to unionize: The company closed its Richland Dental Clinic in Keokuk County last month, and this week announced it would close its Centerville clinic at the end of July, in both cases citing slashed Medicaid funding for the closures. (Twenty-one healthcare workers at the Centerville clinic had just filed a petition May 1 for the right to vote on unionizing with River Hills United, affiliated with Teamsters Local 90).
  
• Help fix homes in Des Moines: If you’re 18 or older with a high school diploma or GED in the Des Moines area, you can apply to a four-month Work That Impacts Housing program in carpentry or electrical that’s aimed to build workforce needs as well as preserve housing in Polk County.
  
• Maybe rethink college? With unemployment rising and the labor market weakening in the US, particularly for young college graduates, college degrees are losing their wage premium.
  
• Working on a union: Eighteen full- and part-time maintenance workers at Fair Oaks Foods in Davenport filed a petition Monday for the right to vote on unionizing with UFCW Local 431.

Upcoming Iowa layoffs:

• CNH Industrial in Burlington is closing and laying off:
  one worker by May 22,
  seven workers by May 29,
  15 workers by June 26,
  13 workers by Sept. 25, and
  five workers by Dec. 31.
  Read more here.
  
• Wells Fargo in West Des Moines is laying off:
  62 workers by May 30,
  25 workers by June 13, and
  10 workers by June 27.
  Read more here.
  
• First Student in Waterloo is closing and laying off 120 workers by June 30. Read more here.