Unions Are the Key to America's Cost-of-Living Crisis

Liz Schuler and Heidi Shierholz write: "As everything gets more and more expensive, we believe there is a powerful solution: unions."

Ask any everyday working American and they will likely tell you that there is something fundamentally wrong with our economy. Across industries, big cities and small towns, workers are struggling. Their salary is not long enough. They stress over every expense and struggle to afford rent and electricity, let alone take their families out to dinner every once in a while. Meanwhile, our research shows that CEOs in 2025 gave themselves huge paychecks and now earn more than 300 times the average worker's salary.

As things get more and more expensive, we believe there is a powerful solution: unions.

Union contracts increase workers' rights. A new report from the Economic Policy Institute shows that tripling union membership in the country would give the average worker a 14.5 percent raise — more than $7,700 a year, or the equivalent of 7.5 extra weeks of pay per year. That amounts to nearly $270,000 over a 35-year career. Unions can also be a powerful tool to fight racial discrimination. A new report shows that tripling union membership would reduce the racial wage gap by more than a third.

The tripling of union density does not only benefit union members. Non-union workers will also see big increases as strong unions raise standards across the economy. In total, EPI estimates that a tripling of union membership would transfer $1.2 trillion of wealth to the economy annually to working people and reverse a third of the increase in inequality since 1979. Workers could enjoy better benefits such as health insurance, and a tripling of union membership would also provide 6.8 million more Americans with health care. This is what the labor movement calls the union difference: higher wages, access to health care, retirement security, paid vacation and sick leave, and dignity at work.

An economy in which 30 percent of workers are unionized is not a dream, but part of our own history. Union membership increased after the New Deal policies of the 1930s and 40s guaranteed workers legal rights. By the 1950s, union membership was over 30% and workers were seeing great gains. Wages rose and the racial wage gap narrowed.

A fundamental union promise is that workers share in the profits they generate—and as soon as wealthy executives and shareholders saw their status as threatened, they moved to attack that progress.

Anti-union court rulings and so-called "right-to-work" state laws have undermined labor laws that once protected workers. Relentless and retaliatory union busting poses significant risks to unionization, with companies spending more than $1.5 billion annually to prevent workers from exercising their fundamental right to organize. And the Trump administration has weakened protections for workers at the Department of Labor and blocked the state agency responsible for protecting workers' rights to organize and bargain collectively for nearly all of 2025, closing workers' paths to justice.

But the workers are struggling, and seeing real results. More than any point in our lives, organizing happens on Earth. Workers are organizing in manufacturing plants, newsrooms, technology, hospitals, college campuses and construction sites. They are changing the game with historic contracts in women's sports. They are organizing in "right-to-work" states in the South and are led by women, communities of color, and young workers.

The results are in numbers. Nearly half a million workers will become unionized in 2025 alone, and the number of workers in unions is at a 16-year high. Public sector workers increased their union membership rate to 36.4 percent in 2025, and the number of private sector workers covered by union contracts increased by nearly a quarter million, including in industries such as health care, retail, construction and education. Union representation among federal workers actually grew to 31.1 percent last year, even as the Trump administration stripped union rights from more than a million of these workers.

The recent surge in labor organizing has coincided with a surge in public acceptance of unions, and there are millions of non-union workers in the United States who say they would join a union tomorrow if given the chance.

However, we know that union membership is well below the level needed to unlock the full potential of the workforce and raise wage standards across the economy. Even when we make substantial progress, we're still at about a third of our 1950s highs. The reality is that organizing alone cannot fix the system stacked against us.

It's clear to us that we need to use this momentum to get key legislation passed that will make it easier for Americans to organize – and we have a plan in Congress to get there. We believe the Right to Organize Act will restore protections for workers that have been lost due to legal loopholes and impose real penalties on companies that violate labor laws. A part of this law was approved by the House of Representatives earlier this summer with the support of two parties. Another bill, the Public Service Freedom to Bargain Act, guarantees for the first time that every public sector employee in the country has the right to bargain collectively.

Along with these necessary labor law reforms, Congress could pursue bold new proposals, such as requiring collective bargaining at companies whose executives are paid at least 100 times more than average workers, or guaranteeing cost-of-living increases for newly unionized workers.

These are big fights. But they are fights we can win. That means making sure our elected leaders stand with workers, not billionaires, and pass pro-worker laws. It means continuing to organize, even when bosses and billionaires try to get in the way. Together, we can build a better economy for working workers by strengthening workers' rights to organize and bargain collectively. Because this research proves what workers have always known: Unions are better.