Oct 10, 2026 · 51 min · 14 segments
On this Newsbuzz episode, we talk with Brianne Pfannenstiel of the 'Des Moines Register' about the midterms as the start of early voting is days away. We also learn about the price Iowa is paying for…
Brianne PfannenstielGuest
Tyler JettGuestEliza BillinghamJack BrookeGuestErin FullerGuestThe company is Masabi Metallics, a Minnesota-based firm, and the price tag, $15 billion.
The plant would make more than 7 million tons of steel a year, expected to be running by 2030.
And to land it, state lawmakers met last week, Friday if you remember, in a special session, uh, passed an incentive package.
Tyler, I see you calculated close to $800,000 per job if all of these 1,750 jobs materialize.
Walk us through the math that you dug into and how it compares with what Iowa usually offers for incentives.
We took the number of jobs that they said that they would hire, and we took the dollar amount that the state has offered, uh, Masabi Metallics, and we did a little division there, and we figured out that if they do in fact hire 1,750 workers, and if they do in fact get $1.36 billion from the state to do this, that they will effectively be getting $777,000 per worker hired.
To your other question about how that compares, generally, the Iowa Economic Development Authority, which is, you know, a state agency out here in Des Moines, uh, does a little, uh- You know, negotiating under a pretty standard incentive package they have, which they normally make decisions based off of how much money you're spending on construction, and how many people you're gonna hire, and how much you're gonna pay those people, and they kind of give you some, some money from there.
And I want to say that on average, the last couple of years, they've offered incentive packages that came out to somewhere in the neighborhood of about $25,000 per job.
We'll be back to talk more with, uh, Tyler Jett of The Des Moines Register, digging into those numbers behind a proposed steel plant, the largest in American history, according to President Trump.
The company is Masabi Metallics, a Minnesota-based firm, and the price tag, $15 billion.
The plant would make more than 7 million tons of steel a year, expected to be running by 2030.
And to land it, state lawmakers met last week, Friday if you remember, in a special session, uh, passed an incentive package.
Tyler, I see you calculated close to $800,000 per job if all of these 1,750 jobs materialize.
Walk us through the math that you dug into and how it compares with what Iowa usually offers for incentives.
We took the number of jobs that they said that they would hire, and we took the dollar amount that the state has offered, uh, Masabi Metallics, and we did a little division there, and we figured out that if they do in fact hire 1,750 workers, and if they do in fact get $1.36 billion from the state to do this, that they will effectively be getting $777,000 per worker hired.
To your other question about how that compares, generally, the Iowa Economic Development Authority, which is, you know, a state agency out here in Des Moines, uh, does a little, uh- You know, negotiating under a pretty standard incentive package they have, which they normally make decisions based off of how much money you're spending on construction, and how many people you're gonna hire, and how much you're gonna pay those people, and they kind of give you some, some money from there.
And I want to say that on average, the last couple of years, they've offered incentive packages that came out to somewhere in the neighborhood of about $25,000 per job.
We'll be back to talk more with, uh, Tyler Jett of The Des Moines Register, digging into those numbers behind a proposed steel plant, the largest in American history, according to President Trump.
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