State-by-State Data: More Unions Mean More Income for All Workers

New state income data illustrates how unionization improves the pay of all workers, whether they're in a union or not.

The U.S. Census Bureau numbers show that all middle-class households benefit from the presence of unions in their state, and that increasing the rate of unionization by just 10 percent would go a long way toward rebuilding America's economy.

"The states with the lowest percentage of workers in unions—North Carolina, Georgia, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Oklahoma, and Texas—all have relatively weak middle classes," the Campaign for American Progress says in its analysis of the data. "Without strong unions, the middle class has lost out to the wealthy."

Depending on which state they live in, middle-class families could expect their income to grow by roughly $1,100 to $2,000 if unions grew by 10 percent, according to a chart that follows the article on the CAP website.