Union membership down, income inequality up

Berit Anderson

Berit Anderson Jul 5, 2025

Feb 6, 2018

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                <h1>Union membership down, income inequality up </h1>
                <h2><p>In honor of Labor Day, our friends at Vox decided to take look at the state of U.S. labor unions. The results aren't pretty, especially for union members and their supporters. Along with the drop in union membership and a growth in the number of right-to-work states</p></h2>
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               <p>By <a href="/author/berit-anderson-crosscut-com/">Berit Anderson</a></p> 
              <p><time datetime="2025-02-04T05:00:00-08:00">Feb 6, 2018</time></p>
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            <p>In honor of Labor Day, our friends at <a href="http://www.vox.com/2014/9/1/6078697/decline-of-unions-united-states-worldwide-oecd?wpisrc=nl-wonkbk&wpmm=1&ref=dev.cascadepbs.org">Vox</a> decided to take look at the state of U.S. labor unions. The results aren't pretty, especially for union members and their supporters. Along with the drop in union membership and a growth in the number of right-to-work states (there are now 24) some economists are now positing a cause-effect link between America’s deunionization and the country's rising income inequality. The graph on the next page tracks union membership against the share of income going to the wealthiest Americans between 1918 and 2008. Researchers at Harvard and the UW estimated that "the decline of organized labor explains a fifth to a third of the growth in inequality" in hourly wages. — M.B.</p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="http://crosscut.com/media/story_image/unionmembership.0.png" class="kg-image" alt loading="lazy"></figure>
          </article>

In honor of Labor Day, our friends at Vox decided to take look at the state of U.S. labor unions. The results aren't pretty, especially for union members and their supporters. Along with the drop in union membership and a growth in the number of right-to-work states (there are now 24) some economists are now positing a cause-effect link between America’s deunionization and the country's rising income inequality. The graph on the next page tracks union membership against the share of income going to the wealthiest Americans between 1918 and 2008. Researchers at Harvard and the UW estimated that "the decline of organized labor explains a fifth to a third of the growth in inequality" in hourly wages. — M.B.

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By Berit Anderson

Berit Anderson was Managing Editor at Crosscut, following tech, culture, media and politics. She founded Crosscut's Community Idea Lab.   Previously community manager of the Tribune Company’