by Jim Rose in applied welfare economics, labour economics, Marxist economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, unions Tags: top 1%, union power, union wage premium

https://twitter.com/PoliticalSift/status/660733745092272128

The Left in the USA and the UK like to show correlations between top incomes and the decline of union membership.

I thought I would check how this hypothesis travelled to European offshoots such as Australia and New Zealand. For example, in the USA, top income shares have been increasing while union membership has been in decline since 1960.

Source: OECD Stat and Top Incomes Database.



Source: OECD Stat and Top Incomes Database.



In the UK, the relationship between union membership and top incomes is gentler than in the USA.

Source: OECD Stat and Top Incomes Database.



Source: OECD Stat and Top Incomes Database.



Moving down under, the relationship between top incomes and union membership is non-existent in New Zealand.

Source: OECD Stat and Top Incomes Database.



Source: OECD Stat and Top Incomes Database.



The same pretty much goes for Australia in terms of no relationship between top incomes in union membership to extent that this relationship is anything more than a spurious correlation.

Source: OECD Stat and Top Incomes Database.



Source: OECD Stat and Top Incomes Database.