The economic evidence for the value of right-to-work laws, which allows individual workers to choose whether or not to join or otherwise support a union, continues to build. Last week the Cascade Policy Institute issued a report indicating that Oregon would have 233,000 additional jobs and wage income would be 13 percent higher if it had passed a right-to-work law in 1985, at about the time neighboring Idaho took that step.

The paper, assembled by Ph.D. economists Eric Fruits and Randall Pozdena, compared the economic performances of right-to-work and non-right-to-work states. Fruits and Pozdena found that right-to-work states enjoyed a "robust" and positive effect on employment, personal income, and wages.

Fruits and Pozdena reached their conclusion after performing a regression analysis that accounted for a wide range of factors, such as the national business environment, population density, taxes and education.

Mackinac Center analysts have long advocated a right-to-work law for Michigan based on our own straight-up comparisons of right-to-work and non-right-to-work states. With Indiana passing its own law, Michiganders will soon get to see the value of labor freedom up close. 

Permission to reprint this blog post in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author (or authors) and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy are properly cited.