Warning! Your browser is extremely outdated and not web standards compliant.
Your browsing experience would greatly improve by upgrading to a modern browser.

Iowa's Free Enterprise Report: 2025 Edition

The Free Enterprise Report is a marquis report that provides an objective, non-partisan, fact-based analysis of the Iowa economic landscape and the state’s most pressing issues. The study is a year long undertaking and includes the CSI Economic Performance Index as well as a Free Enterprise Competitiveness Index across eight different policy areas.

Both indices provide an opportunity to look backwards and better understand where Iowa has been and what direction we are moving. We can better understand how we are performing relative to other states and we can equip policy makers, civic and business leaders with the best understanding of how our state is performing, where we are winning, where we are losing and how free enterprise principles can get us back on track.

 

Download the Full Report

Taxes & Fees
Keeping Local Tax Dollars Local

Iowa’s local governments held $2.5 billion in public funds with ISJIT and IPAIT

Workforce
Degrees without Demand: Inside the Talent Mismatch Costing Iowa Growth and Graduates

In a February 2026 report entitled “Educate. Graduate. Leave.,” CSI found only half of Iowa’s public university graduates remain in the state ten years after graduation.

Jobs & Our Economy
The Inflation Hangover How the Post-Pandemic Price Surge Reshaped Affordability in America

In the years since the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans have experienced one of the most abrupt economic swings in modern history.

March 19, 2026 Zachary Milne
Free Enterprise Report
Free Enterprise Report: 2026 Edition

The Free Enterprise Report is a marquis report that provides an objective, non-partisan, fact-based analysis of the Iowa economic landscape and the state’s most pressing issues.