AWF maintains several labor and employment statistics on the state and federal level. If you have an idea for a map or if we have left something out, please contact us.
Click on a data set or topic for more information
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State in orange are Right to Work states |
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Right to Work laws are statures enforced in twenty-three states, allowed under the provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act, which prohibit trade unions from making membership of unions and payment of dues a condition of employment with said company either ante or post hire. Prior to the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947, unions and employers, under the protected umbrella of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), could lawfully agree to what is known as a “closed shop”, where workers were forced to join a union as a condition of employment. |
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Red is above federal minimum, yellow is equal to federal, green is lower than federal, and blue is no minimum. |
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Minimum wage is the lowest hourly wage that employers may legally pay employees. With the recent Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007, the minimum wage has been raised from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour by 2010. Nearly all states have minimum wage laws that either adhere to whatever the federal government legislates, or raise their minimum wage higher than that of the federal level. |
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States in orange have paycheck protection laws. |
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Paycheck protection refers to laws that prohibit public employee labor organizations from using public employee dues or fees for political contribution, except with the prior consent of individual public employees each year on a specific written form. Before the existence of paycheck protection laws, union bosses could use member dues for political contributions – without consent, and to a candidate that the payee may not even support. |
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States in orange have prevailing wage laws. |
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Prevailing wage is, in labor circles, is generally synonymous with the Davis-Bacon Act, which requires contractors and subcontractors working on federal or District of Columbia construction contracts; or, federally-assisted contracts in excess of $2,000 to pay the workers no less than the current level of the prevailing wage in the area in which the construction project is carried out. The prevailing wage is most often equal to the union wage, which means unionized construction companies can decide the rate of any federal project. The federal government and many state governments use various voluntary surveys to determine the wage that “prevails” in the field of construction. However, unionized contractors and construction crews have an exceptionally high incentive to respond to those surveys. By contrast, nonunion contractors have a low motivation to respond. As a result, even though only a small share of construction workers are union members, most of the contractors responding to the surveys report paying union scale, and thus union scale is determined to be the prevailing wage. |
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States with union density above the national average. |
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Union density is a percentage measurement of union membership in the total workforce. The basic formula for calculation is: workforce union membership divided by total workforce participation times 100 percent. The lower a state ranks in union density the more freedom a worker has. Areas of high union density are often prone to forced persuasion, violence toward non-union members, intimidation, as well as numerous political and campaign contributions on behalf of organizes labor (often conflicting with members political views). |
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States in orange do not offer DC pensions to public employees. |
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Defined contribution pension for public employees provides each worker with their own retirement account, with the benefits varying based upon the initial contribution. The amount is often invested and the final balance is decided on the payout of those investments. The employee and the employer decide how much of salary that will go to the account, which means that the employee has a higher degree of freedom to decide how much they want to save for retirement. The key to the success of defined contribution plans and how they relate to worker freedom is that they are individual, portable personal accounts. Thus, by allowing greater access to their financial determinations, the employee is able to control their own investments. |
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