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 Downplaying
or ignoring this key issue makes it easier to hide the economically disastrous
effects of compulsory unionism. But no matter how vociferously Big Labor tries
to insist that corralling workers into monopolistic unions somehow makes them
more prosperous, there is one unimpeachable fact that union spokesmen have
extraordinary difficulty explaining away:
When they have a choice, working-age people prefer not to live
in forced-unionism states.
Age-grouped state population data for 2020 and 2021 released by the U.S. Census
Bureau in June 2022 show an acceleration of a long-term trend of massive exodus
of breadwinners and their families out of the 23 states that have yet to adopt
and implement a Right to Work law. Such laws bar the termination of an employee
for refusal to bankroll a union they don’t want.
The Census data show that, from July 2020 to July 2021 alone, the total
population of people in their peak-earning years (aged 35-54) in forced-dues
states fell from 41.828 million to 41.673 million. That represents a decline of
155,000, or 0.4%.
Nationwide, the peak-earning year population was actually a
little higher in 2021 than in 2020, thanks to the growing presence of the “echo
boom” generation of Americans in this age bracket. In the 27 Right to Work
states as a group, the number of people in their peak-earning years grew by
nearly 250,000.
If the 23 forced-unionism states had experienced an overall increase in “peak
earners” equal to the national average in 2020-21, forced-unionism states would
have been home to nearly 200,000 more peak earners last year.
The trend of “foot voting” against forced unionism by people who have families
to support was already strong between 2010 and 2020.
Since the beginning of 2012, five states have switched from forced-unionism to
Right to Work. Among the 45 states that haven’t recently changed their Right to
Work status, the 10 states experiencing the most severe peak-earning-year losses
in percentage terms between 2010 and 2020 are all forced-unionism.
They are New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Connecticut,
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Alaska, Rhode Island, Illinois and Missouri.
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Meanwhile, the four top-ranking states (Utah,
Idaho, Texas and Nevada) for peak-earning-year population growth are
all Right to Work.
Had the peak-earning-year population trend in the
23 remaining forced-dues states been the same as the national
average between 2010 and 2020, forced-dues states would have had
roughly a million more residents in their peak-earning years as of
2020. If the latest trend continues, these states are poised to lose
another net two million breadwinners to out-migration to Right to
Work states from 2020-30.
Why are breadwinners, along with their families, fleeing forced-dues
states in droves? The obvious and correct explanation is that more
and more working men and women are figuring out that they cannot
provide as well for their families in such states as they can in
Right to Work states, which have generally higher real incomes as
well as faster job growth. An analysis I conducted in 2020 of Census
Bureau data showed that the mean cost of living-adjusted, after-tax
household income in Right to Work states in 2019 was $64,572,
roughly $4,300 higher than the forced-dues state average.
Such findings should surprise no one who is familiar with the data
revealing where America’s breadwinners prefer to live and work. It
defies common sense to claim that people who get the vast majority
of their income from their jobs would lopsidedly favor living in
states where they are worse off over states where they are better
off.
Yet that is effectively what Big Labor
propagandists claim, over and over again.
The fact is, as George Mason University law
professor Ilya Somin explained in his 2020 book Free to Move, “foot
voters have strong incentives to acquire relevant information and
use it wisely.” People choosing where to live know that their
decisions “have real consequences,” and therefore they generally
don’t act without first considering all the key facts.
Federal and state policymakers should trust “foot voters” to know
what’s best for themselves and their families. “Foot voters” are
telling us, overwhelmingly and increasingly, that they are better
off in Right to Work than in forced-unionism states.
Stan Greer is a senior research associate at the National Institute
for Labor Relations Research. |
