Economy
What the Decline of Unions Could Mean for the Next Generation's Income
One study finds kids who grew up in union families earn more when they enter the workforce.
Decline in union participation—halved since the 1980s—is one reason that middle-income wages have stagnated for decades. Unions tend to create compressed income structures, where more workers earn similar wages. Now, high and low incomes sit on increasingly distant shores.
This wage structure effect is key feature of unionism’s relationship to middle-class workers. But what does it mean for their children? A new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research asks how unionism relates to intergenerational mobility: how parents pass along wealth and other forms of social capital to offspring.