Unions = a large middle class
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...010602824.html
"... The one great period of broadly shared prosperity in U.S. history remains the three decades following World War II, which, anything but coincidentally, is the one period in which America had high levels of unionization. The business lobby is throwing big money into ads opposing the Employee Free Choice Act [[EFCA), which would make it easier for workers to join unions, but one concern it has neglected to address is how the United States can again become a land of broad-based affluence with private-sector unionization at its current 7 percent level. There is no historic precedent for mass prosperity absent mass collective bargaining. The model cannot be constructed..."
Bailey, please show me a variable more plausible than iPods...
Bailey is technically right in a trivial way that doesn't mean anything.
What other institutions have been aggressively working for the interests of the middle class other than unions? Certainly not the middle-class Teabagers and Republicans who have fallen prey to the right wing anti-union demagogues and who oppose even trivial increases to the minimum wage. So now when the middle-class has seen no growth in income in 30 years while the wealthy have seen huge gains, why should we doubt this correlation?
Love your graph, Johnlodge!
It seems to absolutely devoid of any meaning whatsoever! Kind of like Republican deficit-reduction promises, Teabaggers' indignation over the Anti-Christ living in the White House, and the Pope's remorse for protecting child molesters.
I'm gonna save that one!