LABOR UNIONS AND THE
MIDDLE CLASS
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY
August 2023
Executive Summary











broader economic growth.






of their wages.





channels.





across the population.













• 

• 
(NLRB) committed to protecting the right of workers to organize in the workplace.
• 
• 


• 

• 
bargain.
• 


harassment for all working people.
• 
about their organizing and bargaining rights.
• 


construction workers.
• 


Labor Unions and the Middle Class
3
Table of Contents
Execuve Summary .................................................................................................................................. 1
Table of Contents
...................................................................................................................................... 3
Secon 1. Introducon
........................................................................................................................... 4
Secon 2. Historical Context: Middle Class Trends
................................................................................... 6
Secon 3. Theory
.................................................................................................................................... 10
Secon 4. Union Coverage by Occupaon
............................................................................................. 11
Secon 5. The Eect of Unions on the Middle Class
.............................................................................. 13
Section 5.1. Unions Increase Wages
.................................................................................................. 13

............................................................ 

............................................................................. 19
Secon 6. Unions, Race, and Gender
..................................................................................................... 20
Secon 7. Unions and the Broader Economy
......................................................................................... 23
........................................................................................................................ 

.................................................................................................................... 
Secon 8. Conclusion
............................................................................................................................. 27
Labor Unions and the Middle Class
4
Section 1. Introduction







1
Union membership spiked following passage of the


Figure 1: Union Membership and Inequality
10
12
14
16
18
20
22
24
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
1917
1922
1927
1932
1937
1942
1947
1952
1957
1962
1967
1972
1977
1982
1987
1992
1997
2002
2007
2012
2017
2022
Percent
Percent
Year
Income Share of
Top 1% (right axis)
Union Membership Rate (le axis)
Source: Union membership data through 1994 from Farber et al. (2021) and Freeman (1998). Aer 1995,
union membership data is from the CPS and reflects the percent of employed civilian labor force aged 16+
that are a member of a union. Top income share is from the World Inequality Database.


3
1 29 U.S.C. §§ 151–69
2 Farber, Henry S., Daniel Herbst, Ilyana Kuziemko, and Suresh Naidu. 2021. “Unions and Inequality over the Twentieth Century: New Evidence from
Survey Data.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 136 (3): 1325–1385; Freeman, Richard B. 1998. “Spurts in Union Growth: Dening Moments and
Social Processes.” In The Defining Moment: The Great Depression and the American Economy in the Twentieth Century, edited by Michael D. Bordo,
Claudia Goldin, and Eugene N. White, 265–296. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. n.d. Current Population
Survey (CPS) – Union Ailiation Data. Last accessed March 15, 2023. https://beta.bls.gov/dataViewer/view/timeseries/LUU0204899600; World
Inequality Database. n.d. Top 1% Share – Pre-tax National Income for the USA. Last accessed March 15, 2023. https://wid.world/data/.
3 Chetty, Raj, David Grusky, Maximilian Hell, Nathaniel Hendren, Robert Manduca, and Jimmy Narang. 2017. “The fading American dream: Trends in
absolute income mobility since 1940.” Science 356 (6336): 398–406.
Labor Unions and the Middle Class
5




representation.






Despite these long-term trends, the past eight decades also saw notable gains for important segments of the








5


The Biden-Harris Administration is



and unionized workers tend to be those in
the middle of the income distribution.
9








4 Mishel, Lawrence, Lynn Rhinehart, and Lane Windham. 2020. “Explaining the erosion of private-sector unions.” Economic Policy Institute,
November 18, 2020.
5 National Labor Relations Board. 2022. “Election Petitions Up 53%, Board Continues to Reduce Case Processing Time in FY22.” Press release.
October 6, 2022. https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/election-petitions-up-53-board-continues-to-reduce-case-processing-time-in.
6 Examples of recent high-prole successful union elections include eorts at Amazon (Palmer 2022) and Starbucks (Bruenig 2022). Palmer,
Annie. 2022. “‘Amazon, here we come’: Biden boosts warehouse unionization eorts.” CNBC, April 6, 2022. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/06/
amazon-here-we-come-biden-boosts-warehouse-unionization-eorts.html; Bruenig, Matt. 2022. “Workers Are Winning 90 Percent of Their Union
Elections.” Jacobin, May 24, 2022. https://jacobin.com/2022/05/starbucks-union-elections-nlrb-statistics-ulps.
7 McCarthy, Justin. 2022. “U.S. Approval of Labor Unions at Highest Point Since 1965.” Gallup, August 30, 2022.
8 Farber et al. (2021).
9 Freeman, Richard, Eunice Han, Brendan V. Duke, and David Madland. 2016. “What Do Unions Do for the Middle Class?” Center for American
Progress, January 2016.
Labor Unions and the Middle Class
6



Executive Order 14025, which called on each federal










Section 2. Historical Context: Middle Class Trends
Who are the Middle Class?



11






13






15






Under the

10 U.S. Department of the Treasury. 2022. “The State of Labor Market Competition.” March 7, 2022.
11 Reeves, Richard V., Katherine Guyot, and Eleanor Krause. 2018. “Dening the middle class: Cash, credentials, or culture?” Brookings Institution,
May 7, 2018.
12
Reeves, Guyot, and Krause (2018); Zajacova, Anna, and Elizabeth M. Lawrence. 2018. “The Relationship Between Education and Health: Reducing
Disparities Through a Contextual Approach.” Annual Review of Public Health 39:273–289.
13 Reeves, Guyot, and Krause (2018).
14 Smith, Tom W., Michael Davern, Jeremy Freese, and Stephen L. Morgan. n.d. General Social Surveys, 1972-2021. NORC at the University of
Chicago. Accessed July 5, 2022. https://gssdataexplorer.norc.org/variables/568/vshow.
15
“Middle-Class Identication Steady in U.S.” Gallup, May 19, 2022.
16
OECD. 2019. Under Pressure: The Squeezed Middle Class. Paris: OECD Publishing; Kochhar, Rakesh, and Stella Sechopoulos. 2022. “How
the American middle class has changed in the past ve decades.” Pew Research Center, April 20, 2022; Krueger, Alan B. 2012. “The Rise and
Consequences of Inequality in the United States.” Speech at Center for American Progress. January 12, 2012.
Labor Unions and the Middle Class
7
Who are the Middle Class? (continued)
















Figure 2: Income and Wage Growth since the 1960s
60
80
100
120
140
160
180
1964 1971 1978 1985 1992 1999 2006 2013 2020
Index 1979=100
Year
Median Weekly
Wages
Personal Income per
Household
Median Family
Income
Source: Real median weekly wages from Bureau of Labor Statistics; nominal personal income from
Bureau of Economic Analysis; real median household income from Census. All series are deflated
by the Consumer Price Index.
17 Reeves, Richard V., and Katherine Guyot. 2018. “There are many denitions of “middle class”—here’s ours.” Brookings Institution, September 4,
2018.
18 For Rose (2016), lower-middle class and middle-class households have annual household incomes within 150–500 percent of the federal poverty
line (or incomes of $30,000–$100,000 at the time of the study). Rose, Stephen J. 2016. “The Growing Size and Incomes of the Upper Middle Class.”
Urban Institute, June 2016. https://www.urban.org/sites/default/les/publication/81581/2000819-The-Growing-Size-and-Incomes-of-the-Upper-
Middle-Class.pdf.
Labor Unions and the Middle Class
8



19





dual-earning households.












and ages.




homes.

The higher cost of housing has applied to renters as well as homeowners, as the cost of renting has also grown











19 Dynan, Karen, Douglas Elmendorf, and Daniel Sichel. 2012. “The Evolution of Household Income Volatility.” The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis
& Policy 12 (2).
20 Economic Security Index. 2013. Compare Economic Security by State: Viewing percentage of people who lost one quarter (1/4) of their income.
Last updated November 2013. http://economicsecurityindex.org/?p=usmap.
21 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. n.d. Employment-Population Ratio (for Total Ratio, Men, Women, and Ages 25–54 Years). Retrieved from FRED,
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Last accessed April 27, 2023. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?id=EMRATIO,%20LNS12300001,LNS12300002,
LNS12300060; Fry, Richard, Carolina Aragão, Kiley Hurst, and Kim Parker. 2023. “In a Growing Share of U.S. Marriages, Husbands and Wives Earn
About the Same.” Pew Research Center, April 13, 2023.
22
Parker, Kim, and Wendy Wang. 2013. “Modern Parenthood: Roles of Moms and Dads Converge as They Balance Work and Family.” Pew Research
Center, March 14, 2013.
23
Horowitz, Juliana Menasce. 2019. “Despite challenges at home and work, most working moms and dads say being employed is what’s best for
them.” Pew Research Center, September 12, 2019.
24
Van Dam, Andrew. 2023. “The mystery of the disappearing vacation day.” The Washington Post, February 10, 2023.
25 U.S. Census Bureau. 2023b. Figure 7.: Annual Homeownership Rates for the United States by Age Group: 1982 to Present. Current Population
Survey/Housing Vacancy Survey. Last updated March 15, 2023. https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/data/charts.html.
26
Quigley, John M., and Steven Raphael. 2004. “Is Housing Unaordable? Why Isn’t It More Aordable?” Journal of Economic Perspectives 18 (1):
191–214.
27
Larrimore, Je, and Jenny Schuetz. 2017. “Assessing the Severity of the Rent Burden on Low-Income Families.” Finance and Economics Discussion
Series Notes, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, December 22, 2017.
28
Mateyka, Peter J., and Jayne Yoo. 2023. “Share of Income Needed to Pay Rent Increased the Most for Low-Income Households From 2019 to
2021.” U.S. Census Bureau, March 2, 2023.
Labor Unions and the Middle Class
9
percentage of middle-class budgets.






borrowers.

common,
31






has been diminished. A report in Science

33
The decline in

in the middle class.


reduced,




35

discrimination,











29 Dohrman, Emily, and Bruce Fallick. 2020. “Is the Middle Class Worse O Than It Used to Be?” Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic
Commentary 2020-03.
30
Bartscher, Alina K., Moritz Kuhn, Moritz Schularick, and Ulrike I. Steins. 2020. “Modigliani Meets Minsky: Inequality, Debt, and Financial Fragility in
America, 1950–2016.” Federal Reserve Bank of New York, sta report no. 924.
31 Employee Benets Security Administration, U.S. Department of Labor. n.d. “Private Pension Plan: Abstract of Form 5500 Annual Reports.”
Accessed March 14, 2023. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ebsa/researchers/statistics/retirement-bulletins/private-pension-plan.
32
Johnson, Richard W., and Karen E. Smith. 2022. “How Might Millennials Fare in Retirement?” Urban Institute, September 2022.
33
Chetty, et al. (2017).
34 Discrimination has not been reduced in all metrics. A recent summary analysis found no change in the discrimination of Black applicants
in hiring from 1972 to 2015 (Quillian et al. 2017). Quillian, Lincoln, Devah Pager, Ole Hexel, and Arnnn H. Midtbøen. 2017. “Meta-analysis of
eld experiments shows no change in racial discrimination in hiring over time.” PNAS 114 (41): 10870–10875; Darity, William A., and Patrick L.
Mason. 1998. “Evidence on Discrimination in Employment: Codes of Color, Codes of Gender.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 12 (2): 63–90.
35 Bowdler, Janis, and Benjamin Harris. 2022. “Racial Inequality in the United States.” U.S. Department of the Treasury, July 21, 2022.
36
Aneja, Abhay, and Guo Xu. 2021. “The Costs of Employment Segregation: Evidence from the Federal Government Under Woodrow Wilson.” The
Quarterly Journal of Economics 137 (2): 911–958.
37
Brown, Je. 2020. “Nearly 50 years of occupational safety and health data.” Beyond the Numbers, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 9 (9).
38 U.S. Census Bureau. 2023a. Table A-2.: Percent of People 25 Years and Over Who Have Completed High School or College, by Race, Hispanic
Origin and Sex: Selected Years 1940 to 2022. Current Population Survey Historical Time Series Tables. Last updated February 9, 2023. https://
www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/educational-attainment/cps-historical-time-series.html.
Labor Unions and the Middle Class
10




39














Section 3. Theory














higher wages and the marginal cost of production would increase. The cost of that wage increase would be spread



39 Gordon, Robert J. 2017. The Rise and Fall of American Growth. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 352.
40
Waldfogel, Joel. 2017. “How Digitization Has Created a Golden Age of Music, Movies, Books, and Television.” Journal of Economic Perspectives
31(3): 195–214.
41 Martin, Michael. 2021. “Computer and Internet Use in the United States, 2018.” American Community Survey Reports, U.S. Census Bureau, report
no. ACS-49. https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2021/acs/acs-49.html.
Labor Unions and the Middle Class
11






process of production.














Section 4. Union Coverage by Occupation
The 1935 NLRA was one of the most important pieces of federal legislation supporting worker bargaining power

workers, and most domestic help.

















42 Grullon, Gustavo, Yelena Larkin, and Roni Michaely. 2019. “Are US Industries Becoming More Concentrated?” Review of Finance 23 (4): 697–743;
Autor, David, David Dorn, Lawrence F. Katz, Christina Patterson, and John Van Reenen. 2020. “The Fall of the Labor Share and the Rise of Superstar
Firms.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 135 (2): 645–709.
43
For a canonical example of this theory of unions, see Freeman, Richard B., and James L. Medo. 1984. What Do Unions Do. New York: Basic Books.
44
Although railroad employees were also not covered by the NLRA, they were already covered by the Railway Labor Act, passed in 1926.
45 Gould, Elise, and Will Kimball. 2015. “‘Right-to-work’ States Still Have Lower Wages.” Economic Policy Institute, April 22, 2015.
Labor Unions and the Middle Class
12







As these industries grow, strong unions could ensure that


Table 1: Union Membership Rates by Occupation
Occupation Occupation in a
Union in 2022
Employment in
2022
Median Earnings in
2022, dollars
   
   
   
 15.9 1.9 
Installation, maintenance, and repair  3.1 
   
   
Healthcare practitioners and technical 11.3  
Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance 9.5  
 9.1  
   
Healthcare support   
Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media   
Architecture and engineering   
Legal 5.1 1.1 
   
   
  5.9 
  11.1 
  5.5 
 3.3  
Sales and related   
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics. Median annual earnings are estimated by multiplying median weekly earnings by
Percent of Percent of Total Estimated Annual
52. Sample is employed 16+ year olds. Excludes workers represented by, but not a member of, a union.
46 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2022. Table 1.1.: Employment by major occupational group, 2021 and projected 2031. Employment Projections.
Last modied September 8, 2022. https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/emp-by-major-occupational-group.htm.
47 U.S. Department of Transportation. n.d. “Bipartisan Infrastructure Law FAQs: Q4. What kinds of jobs will the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law create?”
Last accessed April 27, 2023. https://www.transportation.gov/bipartisan-infrastructure-law/faq.
Labor Unions and the Middle Class
13
Section 5. The Eect of Unions on the Middle Class





Section 5.1. Unions Increase Wages









Figure 3: Median Wages for Union and Nonunion Workers
0 500 1,000 1,500 2,000
White, Male
White, Female
Black, Male
Black, Female
Asian, Male
Asian, Female
Hispanic, Male
Hispanic, Female
Median Usual Weekly Wages, 2022 ($)
Union Member Non-Union Member
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics. Sample is employed 16+ year olds.






48 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2023. Table 2.: Median weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers by union ailiation and selected
characteristics. Last modied January 19, 2023. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.t02.htm.
Labor Unions and the Middle Class
14





Figure 4: Wages across Occupations
0 500 1000 1500 2000
Sales and related
Computer and mathematical
Food preparation and serving related
Management
Business and financial operations
Personal care and service
Legal
Architecture and engineering
Arts, entertainment, media, and sports
Healthcare support
Office and administrative support
Life, physical, and social science
Cleaning and maintenance
Healthcare practitioners and technical
Production
Transportation and material moving
Installation, maintenance, and repair
Community and social service
Construction and extraction
Education, training, and library
Protective service
Median Usual Weekly Wages, 2022 ($)
Union Member Non-Union Member
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics. Sampleis employed 16+ year olds.


49 Datasets that include highly detailed occupational information are generally unable to also measure unionization status or wages. Smaller
datasets sometimes provide wage and unionization status, but oen lack the necessary sample sizes to measure detailed occupational
information in a way that makes statistical analysis possible. Asking questions about unions on larger government surveys could help to mitigate
this challenge.
Labor Unions and the Middle Class
15




for estimating the wage premium.






These results are consistent with

percent.
51







53





50 Gittleman and Kleiner (2016) use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) from 1979 to 2010. Gittleman, Maury, and Morris
M. Kleiner. 2016. “Wage eects of unionization and occupational licensing coverage in the United States.” ILR Review 69 (1): 142–172.
51 See, e.g., Kleiner and Krueger (2013), Card (1996), and Card, Lemieux, and Riddell (2018). Kleiner, Morris M., and Alan B. Krueger. 2013. “Analyzing
the Extent and Inuence of Occupational Licensing on the Labor Market.” Journal of Labor Economics 31 (2): S173–S202; Card, David. 1996. “The
eect of unions on the structure of wages: A longitudinal analysis.” Econometrica 64 (4): 957–979; Card, David, Thomas Lemieux, and W. Craig
Riddell. 2018. “Unions and Wage Inequality: The Roles of Gender, Skill and Public Sector Employment.” National Bureau of Economic Research,
working paper no. 25313.
52 To create consistent estimates across time, Farber et al. (2021) do not include occupation codes in their estimates. Note: estimates from 2000
onward are based on the CPS—earlier years rely on other sources, including survey data from Gallup.
53 Note: estimation with this technique requires tremendously detailed information including, at minimum, information about union votes matched
to employers and the ability to follow employers over time. Since not all elections are close-call elections, the sample size must also be large
enough to include a suiciently large number of close-call wins and losses. Additionally, employer-employee linked data is needed if the aim is
to determine the eects of unionization on workers at the rm. In the United States, these types of data are realistically only available using non-
public sources like the U.S. Census Bureau’s Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics dataset.
54 As Ferguson (2008) notes, this “regression discontinuity” approach may only identify an intention to treat with unionization because, as discussed
later, a substantial share of union certications fail to form a rst contract. This may downwardly bias estimates because the ‘treated’ group may
never actually receive the ‘treatment’ of forming a union contract. Ferguson, John-Paul. 2008. “The Eyes of the Needles: A Sequential Model of
Union Organizing Drives, 1999–2004.” ILR Review 62 (1): 3–21.
Labor Unions and the Middle Class
16

55









or about unions that were formed






the wage premium is smaller for recent union hires and larger for long-tenured union workers.
59


other amenities, to which we now turn.
Section 5.2. Unions Improve Fringe Benefits and Amenities






55 DiNardo and Lee (2004) are among the rst to use a narrow-win union election framework to analyze the impact of new unionization on wages.
Using data on manufacturing establishments from the U.S. Census’ Longitudinal Research Database, this study’s estimates suggest the union
wage premium is close to zero. Using similar data, Young and Wang (2021) and Frandsen (2021) both use similar approaches to DiNardo and
Lee (2004), adjusting for non-random manipulation of vote shares around the 50 percent vote cuto, to show incumbent workers’ wages in
these studies were largely unaected by a successful unionization eort compared to those who did not successfully unionize. Both papers note
a drop in average wages but nd that drop is driven by a compositional change from older workers (who tend to be higher-paid) to younger
workers (who tend to be lower-paid). Sojourner et al. (2015) nd a similar compositional eect in the context of nursing homes, though they
nd a positive eect of unionization on wages for incumbent workers. Sojourner et al. (2015) show the shi to workers at the lower end of the
income distribution occurs both through retention of lower income workers and separations of higher income workers. DiNardo, John, and
David S. Lee. 2004. “Economic Impacts of New Unionization on Private Sector Employers: 1984–2001.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 119
(4): 1383–1441; Young, Samuel and Sean Wang. 2021. “Unionization, Employer Opposition, and Establishment Closure.” December 30, 2021.
https://sammygyoung.github.io/syoung_site/unionsClosure.pdf; Frandsen, Brigham R. 2021. “The Surprising Impacts of Unionization: Evidence
from Matched Employer-Employee Data.” Journal of Labor Economics 39 (4): 861–894; Sojourner, Aaron J., Brigham R. Frandsen, Robert J. Town,
David C. Grabowski, and Min M. Chen. 2015. “Impacts of unionization on quality and productivity: Regression discontinuity evidence from nursing
homes.” ILR Review 68 (4): 771–806.
56 Only 36 percent of elections are followed by a contract within one year, and 58 percent within two years. Bronfenbrenner, Kate. 2022. “In
Solidarity: Removing Barriers to Organizing.” Testimony before the United States House Committee on Education and Labor, September 14, 2022.
https://hdl.handle.net/1813/111838.
57 A nontrivial share of elections are either decisively won or lost—Frandsen (2021) nds that the average vote share in a winning election is 70
percent, while the average vote share in a losing election is 33 percent.
58 For more details, see discussion in Kochan et al. (2022). Kochan, Thomas A., Janice R. Fine, Kate Bronfenbrenner, Suresh Naidu, Jacob Barnes,
Yaminette Diaz-Linhart, Johnnie Kallas, et al. 2022. “U.S. Workers’ Organizing Eorts and Collective Actions: A Review of the Current Landscape.”
The Worker Empowerment Research Network, June 2022. https://mitsloan.mit.edu/institute-work-and-employment-research/new-report-u-s-
workers-organizing-eorts-and-collective-actions.
59 Parolin, Zachary, and Tom VanHeuvelen. 2022. “The Cumulative Advantage of a Unionized Career for Lifetime Earnings.” ILR Review 76 (2):
434–460.
60 Dened benet plans correspond to traditional pensions—a promise by an employer to provide specied payments to the employee upon their
retirement. Dened contribution plans allow employers to make specic contributions toward current employees’ retirement accounts (e.g.,
401(k)). Relative to dened benet plans, dened contribution plans increase participant decision risk, nancial market risk, and annuitization
risk for employees (Poterba 2014). Poterba, James M. 2014. “Retirement Security in an Aging Population.” American Economic Review 104 (5): 1–30.
Labor Unions and the Middle Class
17









Figure 5: Fringe Benets and Amenities
0 20 40 60 80 100
UI recipienc y rate
Among ui applicants, received UI
Applied to unemployment insurance (UI)
Paid jury duty leave
Employee assistance programs
Subsidized commuting
Childcare
Offered paid sick leave
Life insurance: participat ion
Offered life insurance
Medical benefits: participation
Offered medical benefits
Retirement benefits: participation
Offered defined benefit retirement
Offered any retirement benefits
Percent
Union Member Non-Union Member
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics. UI data from 2018. Other data from March 2021. Offered
benefits describe whether an employee has access to the benefit through their employer, not
the take-up thereof. UI values include non-member workers represented by a union. UI
recipiency rate is the percent of unemployed workers who received UI, irrespective of whether
they are eligible for UI payments.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics. UI data from 2018. Other data from March 2021. Offered
benefits describe whether an employee has access to the benefit through their employer, not
the take-up thereof. UI values include non-member workers represented by a union. UI
recipiency rate is the percent of unemployed workers who received UI, irrespective of whether
they are eligible for UI payments.
61 All else equal, employers have weak incentives to provide full transparency regarding UI eligibility because of the rating of state UI tax rates—that
is, employers who lay o more workers that end up on UI are required to pay more into the state UI system. For more details, see Employment &
Training Administration, U.S. Department of Labor. n.d. “Conformity Requirements for State UC Laws: Experience Rating.” Accessed September
16, 2022. https://oui.doleta.gov/unemploy/pdf/uilaws_exper_rating.pdf; Anderson, Patricia M., and Bruce D. Meyer. 2000. “The eects of the
unemployment insurance payroll tax on wages, employment, claims and denials.” Journal of Public Economics 78 (1–2): 81–106; Cleary, Aisling,
Joyce Kwok, and Rob Valleta. 2009. “New Highs in Unemployment Insurance Claims.” Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, FRBSF Economic
Letter 2009-28.
Labor Unions and the Middle Class
18











pension plans.





















Being able to plan ahead






dislike 



62 Juravich, Tom, Kate Bronfenbrenner, and Robert Hickey. 2006. “Signicant Victories: An Analysis of Union First Contracts.” In Justice on the Job:
Perspectives on the Erosion of Collective Bargaining in the United States, edited by Richard N. Block, Sheldon Friedman, Michelle Kaminski, and
Andy Levin, 87–114. Kalamazoo: W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
63
Knepper, Matthew. 2020. “From the Fringe to the Fore: Labor Unions and Employee Compensation.” The Review of Economics and Statistics 102
(1): 98–112.
64
Dollar gures reect ination adjustment from values reported in Knepper (2020) using the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers
(CPI-U).
65
Petach, Luke, and David K. Wyant. 2022. “The union advantage: union membership, access to care, and the Aordable Care Act.” International
Journal of Health Economics and Management, 1–26.
66
Freeman, Richard B., and Morris M. Kleiner. 1990. “Employer behavior in the face of union organizing drives.” ILR Review 43 (4): 351–365.
67 Sojourner, Aaron, and Jooyoung Yang. 2022. “Eects of union certication on workplace-safety enforcement: regression-discontinuity
evidence.” ILR Review 75 (2): 373–401. See also Weil, David. 1991. “Enforcing OSHA: The role of labor unions.” Industrial Relations: A Journal of
Economy and Society 30 (1): 20–36.
68 Smith et al. (n.d.). Estimates are pooled from 2014 and 2018 waves due to sample size limitations.
69 Mas, Alexandre, and Amanda Pallais. 2017. “Valuing alternative work arrangements.” American Economic Review 107 (12): 3722–59.
70 Akerlof, George A., Andrew K. Rose, and Janet L. Yellen. 1988. “Job switching and job satisfaction in the US labor market.” Brookings Papers on
Economic Activity 1988 (2): 495–594.
Labor Unions and the Middle Class
19


This research implies amenities like respect and

Section 5.3. Spillovers and Other Indirect Eects



local economies.
Evidence of Spillovers






changes in minimum wage laws.





point increase in union membership percentage would increase the wages of nonunion men in this income









Other Indirect Eects



71 Sockin, Jason. 2022. “Show Me the Amenity: Are Higher-Paying Firms Better All Around?” CESifo, working paper no. 9842.
72
Fortin, Nicole M., Thomas Lemieux, and Neil Lloyd. 2021. “Labor market institutions and the distribution of wages: The role of spillover
eects.” Journal of Labor Economics 39 (S2): S369–S412; Taschereau-Dumouchel, Mathieu. 2020. “The Union Threat.” The Review of Economic
Studies 87 (6): 2859–2892.
73 The impact of changes in government policy arising out of union advocacy is not the focus of this paper; however, Ahlquist (2017) suggests that
advocacy plays an important role in unions’ impacts on the labor market. Spillovers and “threat eects” within the labor market, however, are
discussed in this paper. Ahlquist, John S. 2017. “Labor Unions, Political Representation, and Economic Inequality.” Annual Review of Political
Science 20 (1): 409–432.
74
The distribution regression approach of Fortin, Lemieux, and Lloyd (2021) model eects over the income distribution by interacting the
unionization rate with a quartic function in wage to construct a distribution of eects over the income distribution. They compute marginal
eects (of a 1 percentage increase in union density) by comparing this distribution to a counterfactual estimated distribution where unionization
rates were 1 percentage point higher (see eq (5)). The authors nd similar results using the recentered inuence functions approach of Firpo,
Fortin, and Lemieux (2009). Firpo, Sergio, Nicole M. Fortin, and Thomas Lemieux. 2009. “Unconditional quantile regressions.” Econometrica 77 (3):
953–973.
75
Rosenfeld, Jake, Patrick Denice, and Jennifer Laird. 2016. “Union decline lowers wages of nonunion workers.” Economic Policy Institute, August 30,
2016. Note: “average nonunion worker” excludes senior managers since senior managers are generally unable to unionize.
76
Note: Rosenfeld, Denice, and Laird (2016) do not interpret their estimates causally. Their approach suers from many of the CPS’s sample size
limitations. Although the CPS ostensibly reports quite detailed occupational codes, Rosenfeld, Denice, and Laird estimate regressions with only
four occupational codes and 18 industry codes. This data limitation greatly increases the risks that the regression-adjusted approach cannot
control for selection eects into unionization.
Labor Unions and the Middle Class
20
homeownership, educational attainment, and health outcomes. Higher income is associated with higher rates of
homeownership,







outcomes,

worse child health,










organization.

Section 6. Unions, Race, and Gender





members.








anti-discrimination measures for both gender and race.


77 Goodman, Laurie S., and Christopher Mayer. 2018. “Homeownership and the American Dream.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 32 (1): 31–58.
78
Bailey, Martha J., and Susan M. Dynarski. 2011. “Gains and Gaps: Changing Inequality in U.S. College Entry and Completion.” National Bureau of
Economic Research, working paper no. 17633.
79 Lindahl, Mikael. 2005. “Estimating the Eect of Income on Health and Mortality Using Lottery Prizes as an Exogenous Source of Variation in
Income.” The Journal of Human Resources 40 (1): 144–168.
80
Hutchings, Hayley A., Annette Evans, Peter Barnes, Joanne Demmler, Martin Heaven, Melanie A. Hyatt, Michelle James-Ellison, et al. 2013. “Do
children who move home and school frequently have poorer educational outcomes in their early years at school? An anonymised cohort study.”
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81
Bzostek, Sharon H., and Audrey N. Beck. 2011. “Familial Instability and Young Children’s Physical Health.” Social Science & Medicine 73 (2):
282–292.
82
Gennetian, Lisa A., and Eldar Shar. 2015. “The Persistence of Poverty in the Context of Financial Instability: A Behavioral Perspective.” Journal of
Policy Analysis and Management 34 (4): 904–936.
83
This 12 percentage-point union voting premium largely reects socioeconomic factors associated with individuals who join a union. However,
when comparing members with non-members who exhibit similar characteristics, there remains a union voting premium of 4 percentage points.
Freeman, Richard B. 2003. “What Do Unions Do…to Voting?” National Bureau of Economic Research, working paper no. 9992.
84
Zullo, Roland. 2011. “Labor Unions and Charity.” Industrial and Labor Relations Review 64 (4): 699–711.
85
Crain, Marion. 1994. “Between Feminism and Unionism: Working Class Women, Sex Equality, and Labor Speech.” Georgetown Law Journal 82 (6):
1942–1946.
86
Yates, Michael D. 2009. Why Unions Matter. New York: Monthly Review Press.
87
Juravich, Bronfenbrenner, and Hickey (2006).
Labor Unions and the Middle Class
21



discrimination legislation and enforcement, and promoting wage-setting practices that are less susceptible


determinations.





union measures.


gaps amongst teachers.
91





93








Therefore, if unions were to strengthen and



88 In the rst-time union contracts from 1987 to 1996, 53 percent included protections for workers with disabilities, while only 18 percent included
protections due to sexual orientation (Juravich, Bronfenbrenner, and Hickey 2006). For the LGBTQ+ community, union protections have come
more recently. See, for example, Ángeles et al. (2020). Ángeles, Sophia, Lucero Herrera, Sid Jordan, Janna Shadduck-Hernández, and Saba
Waheed. 2020. “Union Values and LGBTQ+ Worker Experiences: A Survey of UFCW Workers in the United States and Canada.” UCLA Labor Center.
https://www.labor.ucla.edu/publication/lgbtqworkers/.
89 See, e.g., Card (1996) and Freeman (1982). Freeman, Richard B. 1982. “Union wage practices and wage dispersion within establishments.” ILR
Review 36 (1): 3–21.
90 Rosenfeld, Jake, and Meredith Kleykamp. 2012. “Organized Labor and Racial Wage Inequality in the United States.” American Journal of Sociology
117 (5): 1460–1502.
91 Biasi, Barbara, and Heather Sarsons. 2022. “Flexible wages, bargaining, and the gender gap.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 137 (1): 215–266.
92 Bruns, Benjamin. 2019. “Changes in Workplace Heterogeneity and How They Widen the Gender Wage Gap.” American Economic Journal: Applied
Economics 11 (2): 74–113.
93 Gartner, Hermann, and Gesine Stephan. 2004. “How Collective Contracts and Works Councils Reduce the Gender Wage Gap.” Institute for
Employment Research, German Federal Employment Agency, IAB discussion paper no. 7.
94 Dunn, Megan, and James Walker. 2016. “Union Membership in the United States.” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Spotlight on Statistics. https://
www.bls.gov/spotlight/2016/union-membership-in-the-united-states/home.htm.
Labor Unions and the Middle Class
22
Table 2: Union Membership by Demographic Group
Demographic Group
Percent of Group in
Union
Percent of Group in
Private Sector Union
Percent of
Group in
Public Sector
Union
Total  5.1 
   
  3.9 
White   
   
 9.5 3.5 
Black   5.5
   5.5
   5.5
Asian   
   3.5
 9.1  
Hispanic  5.1 
 9.1  
   
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and author’s calculations using BLS data, accessed through IPUMS. Data reect 2022 values. Sample is
employed 16+ year olds. Excludes workers represented by, but not a member of, unions.




95


and men are half as




95 U.S. Census Bureau (2023a). This statistic is for people ages 25–29 who have completed four or more years of college.
96 Umberson, Debra, Zhiyong Lin, and Hyungmin Cha. 2022. “Social isolation increases from adolescence through later life but varies by gender,
age, and partnership status.” CAPS Research Brief 1 (2).
97 Cox, Daniel A. 2021. “The State of American Friendship: Change, Challenges, and Loss.” Survey Center on American Life, June 8, 2021. https://www.
americansurveycenter.org/research/the-state-of-american-friendship-change-challenges-and-loss/.
Labor Unions and the Middle Class
23











99




of strengthening unions.
Section 7. Unions and the Broader Economy












Section 7.1. Inequality






A recent paper estimated that between


percentage points for workers with a college degree.

98 Pew Research Center. 2018. “Where Americans Find Meaning in Life.” Detailed Tables. November 20, 2018. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/
wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2018/11/Detailed-Tables-FOR-WEB.pdf; Reeves, Richard V. 2022. Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling,
Why It Matters, and What to Do about It. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, p. 39.
99 Chetty, Raj, Nathaniel Hendren, Maggie R. Jones, and Sonya R. Porter. 2020. “Race and Economic Opportunity in the United States: An
Intergenerational Perspective.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 135 (2): 711–783.
100 Hirsch, Barry, David Macpherson, and William Even. 2023. Union Membership and Coverage Database from the Current Population Survey. Last
updated March 22, 2023. https://unionstats.com/.
101 Bivens, Josh, and Jori Kandra. 2022. “CEO pay has skyrocketed 1,460% since 1978.” Economic Policy Institute, October 4, 2022.
102 Stansbury, Anna, and Lawrence H. Summers. 2020. “The declining worker power hypothesis: An explanation for the recent evolution of the
American economy.” National Bureau of Economic Research, working paper no. 27193.
Labor Unions and the Middle Class
24

f the income distribution. This









known income distribution of union workers to simulate what the income distribution would be had those workers



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






103 Aghion, P., E. Caroli, and C. Garcia-Penalosa. 1999. “Inequality and Economic Growth: The Perspective of the New Growth Theories.” Journal of
Economic Literature 37 (4): 1615–60.
104 Kumhof, Michael, Romain Rancière, and Pablo Winant. 2015. “Inequality, Leverage, and Crises.” American Economic Review 105 (3): 1217–45.
105 Brady, David, Regina S. Baker, and Ryan Finnigan. 2013. “When unionization disappears: State-level unionization and working poverty in the
United States.” American Sociological Review 78 (5): 872–896.
Labor Unions and the Middle Class
25


Section 7.2. Productivity













registered nurses unionized compared to patient outcomes in hospitals without registered nurse unions. The





in nonunionized nursing homes.




readmissions.
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



of the United States.
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


111
In contrast, unionized plants that adopt practices such
106 Oswald, Andrew J., Eugenio Proto, and Daniel Sogri. 2015. “Happiness and Productivity.” Journal of Labor Economics 33 (4): 789–822; Harter,
James K., Frank L. Schmidt, and Theodore L. Hayes. 2002. “Business-unit-level relationship between employee satisfaction, employee
engagement, and business outcomes: A meta-analysis.” Journal of Applied Psychology 87 (2): 268–279.
107 Dube, Arindrajit, Ethan Kaplan, and Owen Thompson. 2016. “Nurse unions and patient outcomes.” ILR Review 69 (4): 803–833.
108 Dean, Adam, Jamie McCallum, Simeon D. Kimmel, and Atheendar S. Venkataramani. 2022. “Resident Mortality and Worker Infection Rates from
COVID-19 Lower in Union than Nonunion US Nursing Homes, 2020–21.” Health Aairs 41 (5): 751–759.
109 Gruber, Jonathan, and Samuel A. Kleiner. 2012. “Do strikes kill? Evidence from New York state.” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 4 (1):
127–57.
110 Alder, Simeon, David Lagakos, and Lee Ohanian. 2023. “Labor Market Conict and the Decline of the Rust Belt.” Journal of Political Economy 131
(4).
111 Black, Sandra E., and Lisa M. Lynch. 2001. “How to Compete: The Impact of Workplace Practices and Information Technology on Productivity.”
The Review of Economics and Statistics 83 (3): 434–445.
Labor Unions and the Middle Class
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
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In education,


113



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


considerations alone.
115



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









be close to zero.




sectors.
119



112 Black and Lynch (2001).
113 Matsudaira, Jordan D., and Richard W. Patterson. 2017. “Teachers’ unions and school performance: Evidence from California charter schools.”
Economics of Education Review 61:35–50.
114 An establishment refers to a single physical location, whereas a rm refers to ownership over all establishments. Most rms are single
establishment rms. Larger rms are more likely to have multiple establishments.
115 Due to data limitations regarding single- versus multi-establishment rms, Young and Wang (2021) are only able to estimate these eects for
manufacturing rms. Results may not necessarily translate to service sector rms and establishments.
116 Lee, David S., and Alexandre Mas. 2012. “Long-run impacts of unions on rms: New evidence from nancial markets, 1961–1999.” The Quarterly
Journal of Economics 127 (1): 333–378.
117 Doucouliagos, Christos, and Patrice Laroche. 2003. “What do unions do to productivity? A meta-analysis.” Industrial Relations: A Journal of
Economy and Society 42 (4): 650–691. https://library.fes.de/libalt/journals/swetsfulltext/17556769.pdf.
118 Hirsch, Barry T. 2004. “What Do Unions do for Economic Performance?” Journal of Labor Research 25, 415–456.
119 Doucouliagos, Christos, Richard B. Freeman, and Patrice Laroche. 2017. The Economics of Trade Unions: A study of a Research Field and Its
Findings. London: Routledge.
Labor Unions and the Middle Class
27
Section 8. Conclusion



workers.







increase health outcomes for patients in hospitals where healthcare workers are unionized.











Legislative priorities














Labor Unions and the Middle Class
28
Executive actions










And earlier






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








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120 The White House. 2023. “The White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment: Update on Implementation of
Approved Actions.” Press release. March 17, 2023. https://www.whitehouse.gov/brieng-room/statements-releases/2023/03/17/the-white-house-
task-force-on-worker-organizing-and-empowermentupdate-on-implementation-of-approved-actions/.
121 https://www.dol.gov/general/workcenter.
122 S.4192, 117th Congress (2021–2022). See also Casey, Bob. 2023. “Casey Introduces Legislation to Make Tax Code Fairer for Workers, Combat Union
Busting.” Press release. March 9, 2023. https://www.casey.senate.gov/news/releases/casey-introduces-legislation-to-make-tax-code-fairer-for-
workers-combat-union-busting; Casey, Bob, Ron Wyden, Patty Murray, Chris Van Hollen, and Cory Booker. n.d. “No Tax Breaks for Union Busting
Act.” Press release. https://www.casey.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/one_pager_no_tax_breaks_for_union_busting_act.pdf.