The Right-to-Work Advantage

From the WSJ, by Luke Hilgemann And David Fladeboe. Messrs. Hilgemann and Fladeboe are, respectively, the CEO and Wisconsin state director of Americans for Prosperity.

Excerpts:

"from 2003-13 states with such laws increased their employment rolls by 9.5%—nearly three percentage points more than the national average and more than double the growth in non-right-to-work states."

"Personal incomes in those states grew 12% more than in states without right-to-work protections during that same 10-year period"

"Labor unions try to rebut these statistics by pointing to their higher top-line wages and salaries. But these simple analyses fail to mention that those earnings are disproportionately in union strongholds in the Northeast, Chicago and on the West Coast, where the cost of living is more expensive than in the right-to-work South and Midwest. It makes sense that those areas would have higher nominal pay.

Once cost of living is considered, right-to-work states have 4.1% higher per capita personal incomes than non-right-to-work states, according to a 2013 analysis by the Michigan-based Mackinac Center for Public Policy."

"the economies of right-to-work states grew about 10% more than non-right-to-work states between 2003 and 2013."

[there are]"statistically significant economic growth advantages of right-to-work states in every 10-year period dating back to the 1960s."

[there is]"net migration of citizens to those states with such laws."

"from 2003-13 the population of right-to-work states grew by 3%—nearly quadruple the national average of 0.8%. Non-right-to-work states saw their populations decline by 1.1% over the same period."

"While 38% of union household members voted for a Republican candidate in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2014, an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics revealed that more than 90% of union political spending backed Democratic candidates."