Op-ed: Federal choices are hurting Nebraska families. Our delegation holds the keys to fix it

Source: Omaha World-Herald

By Nebraska For Us State Director Angie Lauritsen for the Omaha World-Herald

(February 16, 2026)

Over the past year, as the Trump 2.0 agenda has unfolded, mounting evidence shows that critical federal policy decisions are weighing down the U.S. economy.

It is leading to slowing job growth and growing uncertainty for small businesses and working families in Nebraska.

Recent national labor market data underscores just how fragile conditions remain.

The first jobs report of 2026 showed that U.S. employers added 130,000 jobs in January, beating expectations and pushing the unemployment rate slightly lower to 4.3%, a figure that looks healthy at first glance.

However, major revisions to payroll data drastically cut 2024–2025 job growth, reducing it to just about 181,000 net jobs added in 2025. That is less than half of what was previously reported and the weakest annual job growth since 2020 outside of a recession.

That contradiction reflects deeper labor-market trouble. Private firms still show weak hiring outside a few sectors, and planned layoffs are still elevated. Data from layoff trackers show January’s announced cuts were among the highest for any January since 2009, while new hires reported by firms were at historic lows.

Tariffs intended to “protect” American industry have instead increased input costs for family farms and Main Street businesses that rely on global supply chains.

Nebraska producers already operate on thin margins, and rising costs from tariffs squeeze household budgets and cut into investment. The result? Reduced hiring, delayed growth, and economic anxiety in communities as large as Omaha to our state’s smallest counties.

This past week in Congress, Republicans in the U.S. House finally defeated a procedural effort to block tariff-related votes that would have prevented members from challenging President Trump’s sweeping tariff policies through mid-2026.

Three Republicans, including Rep. Don Bacon, joined House Democrats to reject a rule that would have continued preventing Congressional action on tariffs.

This defeat opened the door to repealing or reining in tariffs on Canada, with future votes expected on Mexico and Brazil. It makes clear that our representatives, including Reps. Bacon, Mike Flood and Adrian Smith, could have acted sooner to limit the harm, but chose not to.

To be clear, just opening the door to vote isn’t the same as fixing the problem.

These tariffs still act as a tax on Nebraska families and businesses. They are raising costs, creating trade uncertainty, and contributing to the slow hiring that defined most of 2025.

In fact, a new study found households paid an additional $1,000 last year due to President Trump’s tariffs. While these votes were a start, real solutions require sustained actions, not just opportunities for debate.

Nebraska’s economy is woven from small businesses, farms, and skilled labor. As corporations announce job cuts and scale back hiring, workers in sectors like manufacturing, logistics, and services face increased anxiety about whether they will keep their jobs.

Across the country, job openings have fallen to levels not seen since 2020, and unemployment insurance claims have ticked higher - all while economic growth persists at the surface but hiring remains uneven.

In the last year, leaders in Congress could have taken a different path:

• They could have defended job certainty by rejecting chaotic tariffs that raise costs, squeeze employers, and lead to hiring freezes and layoffs;
• They could have lowered the cost of staying healthy and on the job by extending ACA tax credits instead of slashing Medicaid and shifting costs onto families;
• Strengthen SNAP, unemployment insurance, and housing assistance so families can weather economic uncertainty.

Instead, working families in Nebraska are left picking up the pieces.

Farmers need policies that lower costs and expand markets. Small businesses need a stable labor market with affordable health care and predictable costs. Working families need certainty, not the policymakers’ prioritized tax breaks for billionaires and harmful economic experiments.

Hardworking Nebraskans shouldn’t pay the price for failed federal choices. It falls on all of us to ensure our voices are heard.

We should expect our leaders to put hard-working families, farmers, and small businesses first by lowering everyday costs, protecting access to health care and nutrition assistance, and pursuing trade and economic policies that actually strengthen local communities instead of undermining them.

When policies hurt the people who keep this state running, silence is not an option, and neither is inaction.

Angie Lauritsen is the state director of Nebraska For Us, a community leader, former elected official, and longtime policy advocate focused on removing economic barriers for working families.