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Friday, May 16, 2008
Unions Boost Wages of Lowest-Income Workers the Most
 Shawn Fremstad posted yesterday on a new paper released this month by John Schmitt over at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. The paper studies the impact unions have on income and has some interesting findings:
Using national data for 2003 through 2007, we estimate that unionization raises the wages of the typical low-wage worker (one in the 10th percentile) by 20.6 percent, compared to 13.7 percent for the typical worker (one in the 50th percentile), and 6.1 percent for the typical high-wage worker (one in the 90th percentile). The traditional statistical approach applied to the same data produces an estimate of the average union wage premium of 11.9 percent, which is substantially lower than the union effect on low-wage workers (20.6 percent) and somewhat below the effect for the median- wage worker (13.7 percent).
Read the full report.
Posted by Adam Hughes
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