Mrs.PatsFanInVa

For all of those here who think that unions don't benefit all workers, both unionized and otherwise and who think that because they, themselves are non-union employees that they will not be adversely affected by union-busting activities - well let's hope this graph proves at least a little bit interesting to you.




Wonk Room Report: As Union Membership Rates Decrease, Middle Class Incomes Shrink

IcyPatriot

As the NFL has become more popular I have become older ... a direct correlation.

It also proves absolutely nothing ...

patsfan13

Another great example of liberals utter ignorance on how economies grow, thanks for the link.

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"Some guys play in all-star games, some guys don't. I don't know who picks all those all-star teams. In all honesty, I don't know who picks the combine, for that matter," Belichick said. "How does (Miami-Ohio offensive lineman Brandon) Brooks not get invited to the combine? How did Vollmer not get invited to the combine? I don't know. We can't really worry about that. We just have to try to evaluate them the best we can."

Nikolai

I'm not necessarily anti-union, but I do tire of the idea that correlation equals causation.

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We get what we deserve.

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“On a day when they could have had impact players David Terrell or Koren Robinson..they took Georgia defensive tackle Richard Seymour, who had 1 sacks last season in the pass-happy SEC and is too tall to play tackle at 6-6 and too slow to play defensive end. This genius move was followed by trading out of a spot where they could have gotten the last decent receiver in Robert Ferguson and settled for tackle Matt Light, who will not help any time soon.”

reflexblue

Now thats not very nice.

Chevy

Just as valid as the OP's chart.

PatsFanInVa

So if there is no correlation, I take it that union workers do not, in fact, earn more than non-union members?

Because no matter how weak that correlation is, if union members make more than non-union members, at least some causation can be demonstrated just by the gap in earning power. Fewer union workers, lower average earning power.

But I'll leave you guys to puzzle out how union workers secure labor standards, and then have those standards adopted throughout the workforce. That too must have some amazing coincidental mechanism to explain it. Union workers strike to get a 40-hour week, non-union members suddenly get one. Weird.

PFnV

Stokes

OK PF/Mrs PF, others have made the point that the decrease in union membership is not necessarily causative, that much should be obvious. The chart shows the share of income going to the middle class has shrunk, from 52% to 46%. Wouldn't a much more likely reason for the decrease be that a number of those middle class households have become UPPER class?

"Over the past two decades, the number of households in those brackets decreased by 3.9%, from 48.2% to 44.3%. During the same time period, the number of households with incomes below $25,000 decreased 3.5%, from 28.7% to 25.2%, while the number of households with incomes above $75,000 increased over 7%, from 23.2% to 30.4%.[44]"

American middle class - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Also PF the 40 hour work week example is probably a bad one, as those changes began in the 1800's and were largely codified during the new deal. This chart begins in the late 60's.

Look, unions have played a critical role in the establishment of fair working conditions in the country and will continue to do so I'm sure, but suggesting that there's a link between recent declines in union membership and a purported decrease in wages (which is NOT what this data suggests) seems unlikely to me.

Mrs.PatsFanInVa

You might have quit reading too soon, Stokes.

It's not that individual people are making more money, it's that households are now, more than ever, composed of two incomes. And that 7% increase occurred not in the mid-range entering the higher range (in other words, not $50,000 now earning $76,000 which would signify your Middle Class moving on up to the Upper Class) but occurred strictly in those who already earned more than $100,000 per year - meaning they were already there. It is not the poor getting middle class and the middle class getting rich - it is the rich getting richer.

Poverty rates increased early in the 1980s until late in the 1990s when they started to go back down. Since 2000, the percent of all people living in poverty is up from 11.3% to 12.3% in 2006.

A possible explanation for the increase in the higher earnings categories is that more households now have two wage earners. However, a closer analysis reveals all of the 7% increase can be found in households who earn over $100,000.[44]

Mrs.PatsFanInVa

Are you saying that you do not believe there is a decrease or stagnation in American wages?

For a quarter of a century, from 1980 to 2004, while U.S. gross domestic product per person rose by almost two-thirds, the wages of the average worker fell after adjusting for inflation.

From an economic standpoint what has happened is that the link between productivity and wages has been broken. No longer does economic growth mean increases in the real earnings for the working class as their productivity rises. This was evident through Clinton’s last term when between 1997 and 2001 the top 10 percent of U.S. earners received 49 percent of the growth in real wages and salaries; indeed, the top 1 percent got 24 percent of the total while the bottom half of workers received less than 13 percent. This trend is of longer duration. Based on a somewhat different calculation the share of income going to the top .1 percent quadrupled between 1970 and 1998 at the expense of working-class earners.

Wage Stagnation, Growing Insecurity, and the Future of the U.S. Working Class - Monthly Review