Unions and Public Pension Benefits

The brief’s key findings are:

• Recent debates suggest that union power has led to higher public pension benefits.
• Interestingly, union strength appears to have no impact on the level or growth of benefits.
  • Because pensions are legislated, not bargained, lobbying expertise may be more important than union size.

• In contrast, union strength does seem to raise employees’ wages.
  • Because wages are determined through collective bargaining, union numbers appear to matter.

• Finally, union strength appears to reduce the relative size of the public workforce.
  • Given the effect on wages, reductions in employment would not be unexpected.

• These results should be viewed as only a first step in understanding the influence of public unions on employee compensation.