Union Membership and Standard of Living





The population-weighted average standard of living in "right to work" states is 59 and in the union states, it is 62.



You can also see how median income differs depending on the strength of unions in a state States that permit workers to vote to unionize and collect mandatory dues tend to have significantly higher standards of living. All 10 of the states with the lowest standards of living have less than 11% of their population in unions and 8 of the ten worst states for standard of living are "right to work" states.The population-weighted average standard of living in "right to work" states is 59 and in the union states, it is 62.You can also see how median income differs depending on the strength of unions in a state here

This graph shows how union membership correlates to standard of living. The horizontal axis shows the percentage of each state's workforce that is a member in a union and the vertical axis shows the standard of living in that state. The orange markers represent "right to work" states which do not permit unions to charge mandatory dues and the green markers represent states that permit employees to vote to unionize with mandatory dues. The blue line represents the average relationship between standard of living and union membership.