Labor stronghold Michigan became a right-to-work state in December, 2012. (That is, union membership cannot be a requirement for employment. Voluntary, yes, but not required.) Doom was forecast - that wages would fall. Michigan Capital Conf But doom didn’t fall.
Wages in Michigan have risen since. Michigan Capitol Confidential:
Michigan’s per-capita personal income increased from $38,291 in 2012 (before right-to-work became law) to $39,215 in 2013, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis. That increase was the ninth highest in the country.
Per-capita personal income includes income from all sources divided by the number of people in the state. Salaries and wages are a part of per-capita personal income, but it also includes dividends, interest, rent employee benefits and transfer payments like Social Security, unemployment and welfare.
“The dire predictions of right-to-work detractors have not come true — Michigan has been a leader in income growth since passage,” said James Hohman, assistant director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
A study released this week by Richard Vedder, a distinguished professor of economics at Ohio University and an adjunct scholar with the American Enterprise Institute as well as with the Mackinac Center, found that “incomes rise following the passage of RTW laws, even after adjusting for substantial population growth that those laws also induce. RTW states tend to be vibrant and growing; non-RTW states tend to be stagnant and aging.”
The study states: “The evidence suggests that if non-RTW states had adopted RTW laws 35 years ago or so, income levels would be on the order of $3,000 per person higher today, with the overall effect varying somewhat from state to state.”
Via Thomas Lifson at American Thinker. He is a great source, a regular read for me.
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