Homer Gets a Pay Raise: Economic Misperception and Organized Labor

• In Event: Labor Politics, Class, and Inequality

Abstract

Does union membership raise awareness of the contours of America's unequal economy? In this study we test whether union members are better able to avoid common economic misperceptions. We suggest this ability stems from belonging to organizations that provide information about wages and collective bargaining. Drawing on a unique question battery of economic perceptions in the 2022 Cooperative Election Study, paired with a large-scale survey experiment, we investigate the consequences of union membership for Americans’ perceptions of both personal and sociotropic economic conditions. We examine Americans’ beliefs about wages, the income distribution, inflation, and the job market, in each case finding that union members are increasingly accurate in their views relative to other Americans. In a follow-up analysis, we randomly expose experimental participants to primes designed to heighten their recall of unions’ messaging about the economy, finding that when available in memory, respondents the accuracy of their economic perceptions in response to the treatments. Overall, these results support the notion that unions’ messaging about economic conditions bear long-term implications for voting behavior, and that in places where deunionization has been most acute, economic misperceptions are likely to proliferate.

Authors

• Ian G. Anson, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

• Laura C. Bucci, Saint Joseph's University