By now, it's become apparent that the housing bubble, while inflating household wealth, also helped paper over the fact that U.S. median real wages have been flat or declining for most of the past decade, and not much changed since the 1970s. This trend is especially noticable among male workers having only high school degrees.
Perhaps not so coincidentally, these are the kind of workers who, until the 1970s, held the highest number of private sector union jobs. But much has changed in the makeup of union members since the Bureau of Labor Statistics first looked at this group in 1983.
- There are fewer of them: In 1983, 17.7 million were union members; in 2010, 14.7 million were. The total share of the workforce is down by almost half.
- Men have been exiting unions at a far higher rate. Union membership rate remains higher for men, 12.6 percent, than women, 11.1 percent. But in 1983 the rate for men was 10 percentage points higher than women.
- Union membership rate was highest among 55- to 64-year-old workers (15.7 percent). The lowest union membership rate occurred among those ages 16 to 24 (4.3 percent).
The latest issue of The Atlantic features a long story about the troubled prospects/future of the American middle class. Some thought provoking excerpts:
And this, about how most men with high school degrees continue to pursue a diminishing number of manufacturing jobs instead of occupations in expanding sectors:
Obviously, there are greater forces at work affecting median wages and the American middle class than declining union membership. But it's still worth noting that union members, on the whole, earn about 28 percent more - roughly $200 a week, than non-union workers.
