MIDLAND, Mich. — An analysis released today by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy refutes an oft-touted claim by unions that right-to-work laws result in lower wages for workers. "Right-to-Work States Do Not Have Lower Wages," authored by Christopher Douglas, an economics professor at the University of Michigan-Flint, examines a union-funded study that is frequently cited to criticize right-to-work laws. Douglas’s analysis found, to the contrary, that right-to-work states have modestly higher average wages than non-right-to-work states.

The study analyzes and reproduces the results from a widely cited 2015 Economic Policy Institute report. That report concluded that wages were 3% to 9% lower in right-to-work states. There were two critical flaws in the report’s calculations: it failed to account for state-level differences that would impact average wages and improperly calculated “standard errors.”

Using the same data, Douglas constructed an alternative statistical model without these flaws that more accurately captures the impact of right-to-work laws on average state wages. This model finds that right-to-work laws correlate with wages that are approximately 2% higher, rather than lower.

“Conducting a thorough and balanced economic analysis requires a firm understanding of the methodology,” said Douglas, a member of the Mackinac Center’s Board of Scholars. “Unfortunately, EPI’s analysis fell short. Right-to-work laws are not associated with lower average wages.”

Right-to-work laws allow workers to choose whether to join and pay dues to a union. This primarily impacts private sector workers in unionized environments, as public sector workers have a constitutional right to opt out of union membership any time they want. There are currently 26 states with right-to-work laws.

The full report is available here.