Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Study: Area Union Membership Can Predict Children’s Advancement

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Study: Area Union Membership Can Predict Children’s Advancement:

Study: Area Union Membership Can Predict Children’s Advancement

N.Y. Times

Low-income children rise higher in the income rankings when they grow up in areas with high-union membership.

As unions in this country continue to come under assault, a new study coming out of Harvard, Wellesley (of all places) and the Center for American Progress, finds that unions are key in enabling children from low-income families to escape poverty.

The study shows that unions are needed to push the political system to deliver policies — like a higher minimum wage and greater spending on schools and other government programs — that broadly benefit workers and their families. Three cities that appear to reflect the union effect — San Francisco, Seattle and New York — are all jurisdictions where the minimum wage is rising substantially. This is especially true when you compare them with cities in so-called "right to work" states like North Carolina, Georgia and Mississippi.

Most interesting finding for me... Higher rates of unionization may give rise to certain norms that instill a greater sense of agency in workers.

For example, people who belong to unions are generally aware that Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Study: Area Union Membership Can Predict Children’s Advancement: