Labor unions are good for the middle class

Want To Win The War On Poverty? Rebuild The Labor Movement (Click here to read more)

Jake Rosenfeld - March 19, 2014
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When conservative Ohio Governor and former Lehman Brothers executive John Kasich feels compelled to remind his fellow conservatives that upon entering Heaven, "Saint Peter is probably not going to ask you much about what you did about keeping government small. But he is going to ask you what you did for the poor," you know poverty has reached center stage.
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From the homilies of Pope Francis, to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's (pictured) inauguration speech, poverty and its close cousin inequality are playing starring roles in the current political discourse. The President's 2015 budget proposal, released earlier this month, calls for a significant increase in federal spending on anti-poverty programs, and while these proposals are likely DOA in the Republican-controlled House, Democrats across the land have promised to campaign on the issue leading up to the 2014 midterm races. This year, then, appears little different from much of 2013: the spotlight on poverty shows no sign of dimming.
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Amid all the discussions are familiar calls to raise the minimum wage, buttress the food stamp program, and expand health insurance to the nation's needy. Yet absent from the conversation is a proven and powerful way to reduce poverty: strengthening the labor movement. Historically, unions have played a vital role in supporting the most vulnerable, despite the fact that very few union members were then, or are now, themselves poor. Cross-nationally, countries with powerful labor movements have lower poverty rates. And, in the U.S., recent research by the sociologists David Brady, Regina Baker, and Ryan Finnigan finds that states with strong unions tend to do a better job reducing the number of Americans living "on the outskirts of hope," as President Johnson memorably characterized the issue.