One Big Reason for Voter Turnout Decline and Income Inequality: Smaller Unions

[applegrove]

One Big Reason for Voter Turnout Decline and Income Inequality: Smaller Unions

by Sean McElwee at the American Prospect

http://www.prospect.org/article/one-big-reason-voter-turnout-decline-and-income-inequality-smaller-unions

"SNIP.....................

Two of the most commonly cited reasons for the lack of more liberal policymaking in the United States are the decline in unions and the rising class bias in voter turnout. In the 2014 midterm congressional elections, the Democrats’ rout was largely attributed to a failure of their coalition to turn out at the polls. What is rarely examined, however, is the relationship between a decline in voter turnout and the dwindling number of union members. And as that turnout has declined, the control of the financial class over the entire political system—Republican and Democrat—has taken hold.

Over the last several decades, union membership in the United States has declined precipitously, from 24 percent of all wage and salary workers in 1973 to 11.1 percent today. At the same time, our economy has increasingly begun to favor the wealthiest members of society. The labor share of income has reached the lowest level it’s been since 1929, and that diminished income is distributed incredibly unequally (see chart). According to data from Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, the richest 1 percent of Americans now take home the same share of wage income as the bottom 50 percent.

The decline in unionization is due to several factors but research suggests that politics played the most important role. David Jacobs and Lindsey Myers, sociologists at Ohio State University, find that “reductions in union strength attributable to policies endorsed by Reagan and by later neoliberal administrations helped create the acceleration in inequality after 1981.” Laws like so-called “right to work” legislation and Supreme Court rulings such as 2014’s Harris v. Quinn have gutted union protections. The impact of this decline on widening inequality is clear, but the reason for this connection is not often clearly sketched. While conventional wisdom holds that unions bolstered wages through collective bargaining, new evidence suggests that unions played an equally important role as the “organizing centers of the working class.”

The empirical research on the impact of unions on inequality is clear. As the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) recently showed, there is a clear correlation between the decline in union membership and Gini coefficients (a standard measure of inequality ranging from 1, absolute inequality and 0, absolute equality) at the state level in the United States. In a 2012 study published in The American Sociological Review, Thomas Volscho and Nathan Kelly find that “the rise of the super-rich is the result of rightward-shifts in Congress, the decline of labor unions, lower tax rates on high incomes, increased trade openness, and asset bubbles in stock and real estate markets.” However, their model shows that of these variables, union membership is the most significant factor (see chart).

.....................SNIP"

[Thinkingabout]

1. I hate to disagree with you but to have two-thirds missing for an election does not

Fly. If you took every union member and those as myself lifetime members it will not add up to the two thirds. If income equality is a problem it does not get fixed by voters who does not vote. The GOP wants Democrats to stay away and not vote and we accommodate the GOP by not voting. The Democrats should be voting and slam voter suppression in their face and tell them we are not going to take it anymore. I don't have any hope income equality is even going to be considered in the next two years, the GOP Congress is going to take care of the Republicans.

[applegrove]

2. I don't know what it is like in the USA but in Canada union

members volunteer every single election and share the fire in their bellies with a wide circle around them.

[Thinkingabout]

4. We have lost union membership, Reagan busted the Air Traffic workers and it has gone downhill.

I vote, does not matter how small the election may be, I have worked a voting precinct and in 13 hours only a hundred or so show up and this is out of several thousand registered. I used to push for union members to get out and vote in my younger years. Yes there needs to be a fire in the bellies. If you compare Canada to the US on just health care you know who is far behind and it is all politics.

[Panich52]

6. While I agree about voter duppression, you & OP miss key aspect

The OP is an article I'll share. Unions are definitely a factor in wage equality. And the GOP obviously fears democracy. They gave a goid reason to supress votes.

In each of the last 3 elections, Democrats got more votes than Republicans (totalvif sbout 20 million more in the 3 combined). But gerrymandering cancelled the majority.

I'm tired of MSM and even irate left-of-center helping GOP spread the myth that Dems were whupped in Nov, and so RW has a 'mandate.' Nothing could be farther from the truth.

[Thinkingabout]

8. I understand unions completely, I have been a member since 1966, my point was it is not union

Members past and present to cove the two thirds lacking at the polls. Yes, more Democrats voted than Republicans, their gerrymandering is out of control but is should not stop Democrats from defeating Republicans if we vote in every election. We are allowing the GOP suppression to convince us to stay at home.

Not only did the union job give me higher wages, I had better working conditions and I got a pension.

[kelliekat44]

3. That's part of the RW plan. nt

[Thinkingabout]

5. Yes, and we help the GOP to win

[daredtowork]

7. Well that challenges the notion that that todays "leaner and meaner" unions

are somehow more "politically active" and "committed". Mass allegiance and a "popular front" counts, too.

[Starry Messenger]

9. This is why anti-Union Democrats are so damaging.