Cascade Policy Institute just released a major economic study, The Right to Work Is Right for Oregon, which concludes that Oregon would see major economic benefits if it became a right-to-work state, where job seekers and employees are not forced to join a union and pay union dues to gain or keep their jobs.
Written by Randall Pozdena and Eric Fruits, the same Oregon economists who analyzed the negative impact of tax Measures 66 and 67, the Right-to-Work study concludes that enacting right-to-work legislation this year would lead to:
- 50,000 more people working here in five years; 110,000 more working here in ten years.
- $2.7 billion more in wage and salary income in five years; $7.0 billion more in ten years.
- 14 percent more taxpaying families per year moving into Oregon from non-right-to-work states.
Cascade Senior Policy Analyst and founder Steve Buckstein praised the study for not only finding a correlation between right-to-work policy and economic growth, but for actually pointing to a causal link. In other words, Buckstein stated:
“We conclude that the right to work actually contributes to more employment, higher incomes, more net in-migration of taxpaying households and faster economic growth. It is, therefore, a policy we believe Oregon should adopt.”
The study breaks new ground by covering 70 years of data, every state, and relying on what the authors believe to be the largest datasets ever used to study the impacts of right-to-work laws.
The study confirms that the twenty-two states that do not require workers to join a union and pay union dues enjoy, as a group, more rapid employment and income growth, better job preservation, and faster recoveries from recession. Oregon is not one of those states, yet. Buckstein argues:
“Rather than repeat Oregon’s failed attempt to pull us out of recession by raising taxes on high-income individuals and corporations, a better approach is to remove a key barrier to private sector initiative and job creation by enacting an Oregon right-to-work law.”
Buckstein added,
“Oregonians need to recognize that capital and people are mobile. Tax measures 66 and 67 push high-income people and corporations away from the state, likely losing us up to 70,000 jobs and 80,000 high-income tax filers in the ten years after their passage. Enacting a right-to-work law will put mobility to work in our favor, likely adding 110,000 jobs in ten years and 14 percent more taxpaying families every year coming from non-right-to-work states.”
Buckstein continued,
“Unlike fiscal policies that must weigh spending against taxes or pit one government program against another, enacting right-to-work legislation will not take a single dime out of state coffers. Indeed, right-to-work legislation is one of the few pro-growth policies that are actually costless to enact.”
Buckstein concludes,
“Even if our research had not so clearly shown that Oregon’s economic prospects would improve as a right-to-work state, we still would support the policy based on the non-economic benefits that the name itself implies. Everyone should have the right to work if the employer hires them and they accept the position. No third party should be able to deny individuals the right to work simply because they decline to join a union. Right-to-work is, therefore, a moral as well as an economic imperative.
The Right to Work Is Right for Oregon
A Comprehensive Analysis of the Economic Benefits
from Enacting a Right-to-Work Law
By Randall Pozdena, Ph.D. and Eric Fruits, Ph.D.
Cascade Policy Institute • February 2012
www.cascadepolicy.org
About Cascade Policy Institute
Founded in 1991, Cascade Policy Institute is Oregon’s premier policy research center. Cascade’s mission is to explore and promote public policy alternatives that foster individual liberty, personal responsibility and economic opportunity. To that end, the Institute publishes policy studies, provides public speakers, organizes community forums and sponsors educational programs.
For more information contact Steve Buckstein at 503-242-0900 or steven@cascadepolicy.org
