The flooding throughout the state has stopped.

Or has it?

Just in time for the Labor Day holiday, an annual report from the Iowa Policy Project found that working Iowans are facing a flood of an economic variety.

"The State of Working Iowa 2008" outlines a growing list of challenges working families in Iowa are encountering, including gas prices, food prices and withering personal savings.

"And the last levee of family security -- home equity -- has begun leaking as well," concluded the report, which rounded up economic data from a variety of state and national sources.

"The numbers and some of the circumstances are new -- but our basic Labor Day story remains: Iowans on balance are becoming less economically secure and having a tougher time getting by. To get a new story line for Labor Days to come, our policymakers must grasp these realities and address them," said Colin Gordon, the organization's senior research consultant, in a statement released with the report.

The study from the nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization found that Iowa's recession-based recovery has been slow and continues to shrink.

"By any measure of job growth of job quality, what has been called 'recovery' is nearing an end," said Gordon, who dubbed it "meager."

The recovery so far has been a 3.5 percent increase in the state's nonfarm base over the past seven years. By comparison, the 1990 recession sparked a 14 percent improvement in a similar time period.

In conjunction, job quality has declined. Three of the four job sectors where jobs declined from 2001 to 2007 also were among the top-paying job sectors.

The numbers indicate that the majority of the business declines are being borne by younger and less-educated workers. Job growth has drifted from sectors offering stable, job-based health coverage; younger workers are facing higher student loan loads and lower wages after finishing college; and women in all age groups throughout the state still are making less than men.

Overall, the state's wages are sixth in the nine-state region, with a median wage of $14.30 in 2007.

Wisconsin posted an average wage of $15.17 and Illinois $15.19.

"The net results on job quality from the recent business cycle have been daunting," Gordon said. "In addition, the Iowa economy has added about 110,000 jobs since 1997, but we've lost over 150,000 jobs with health coverage over the same span."

The local median wage is higher than the state's at $16.38 per hour, just over a 4 percent increase in the past year, according to Dan McDonald, director of existing business at Greater Dubuque Development Corp.

Still, he noted the increased percentage can't compensate for all the increased commodity costs families are facing.

And the Iowa Policy Project study authors contend that state policy changes are amplifying economic problems, from failing to index the improved minimum wage to inflation, which has since lost value, and failing to offer significant work supports like child care assistance in a state where "all parents are expected to work."

The findings aren't a surprise to Dan White, president of United Auto Workers Local 94, who has observed that those pressures have been growing.

"I don't see any encouraging signs at all," he said. "It's not a good time for working people."

Local 94, the union that represents some 1,000 hourly employees at the John Deere Dubuque Works facility, has more members feeling pressure in the wake of layoffs there, White said.

"When gas hit $4 a gallon, that seemed to get everybody's attention," he said, noting that many employees commute to work, some from as far as Clinton, Iowa, and Prairie du Chien, Wis.

"The cost is obvious, the strain on the family," he said.

White agreed with the study that there are more struggling women in the work force, like a single mother he talked to Friday who was unable to leave town to accept another job.

"She's got a lot of applications out but there doesn't seem to be anybody hiring," he said. "You've got to sympathize with her."

Officials at Greater Dubuque Development Corp. are aware of the pressure as well.

"You'd have to be in denial to say people aren't feeling a little pain because of these costs," McDonald said. "This is an issue that impacts every consumer in the United States of America, so the silver lining is, it isn't a problem with Dubuque."

McDonald said he believes the nation will bounce back as it has in the past.

For his part, White hopes the country's leaders are tuning into the issues pressuring workers.

"I think they're realizing there's a problem," he said. "I really believe our country has been built by the middle class."