Belonging to a union or living in a U.S. state where organized labor is relatively strong helps lower the likelihood that you will fall into poverty, according to our new research.
In a peer-reviewed study, we examined how unionization is correlated with poverty. So we analyzed data on poverty and unionization rates from 1975 through 2015 using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, which is widely considered to be the gold standard for tracking individuals over time. We used a variety of poverty measures in our analysis.