Wisconsin Again

John Sides created a scatter plot of states by union membership percentage and budget shortfall. "There is not much of a systematic relationship...Based on these measures, states with larger unionized workforces do not have larger budget deficits."

It got shown on Rachel Maddow. Mathew Yglesias commented as did Kevin Drum and Ezra Klein.

Sides a followup, More on Unions and State Budgets.



"But note that my claims in both posts are descriptive ("is associated with") and not causal. The associations that I document here may not reflect causation and may instead be spurious, given that I have controlled for nothing else."

Personally, I'd like the see the states color coded based on collective bargaining laws.

He also posted Unions and Fiscal Outcomes Round-up.

Drum also wrote this very good article Plutocracy Now: What Wisconsin Is Really About. "How screwing unions screws the entire middle class."