Some 24 states have passed right-to-work laws, which allow workers free choice with respect to being represented by a labor union. The other 26 states permit union shop labor agreements that require employees to join the labor union representing workers where one exists, or at least pay dues to that union.
The right-to-work states have had substantially more economic success than the others that restrict individual rights with respect to employment. Perhaps the ultimate test of the quality of life of an area is whether people move into or away from it.
Migration
A net movement into a state is a strong indication that people perceive that life will be better there than that in the area from which they came. Over time, there has been a dramatic movement from the states without right to work laws to ones where the laws exist.
Consider the first decade of this century: from 2000 to 2009, nearly five million native-born Americans moved from the non-right-to- work states into the 22 states with right-to-work laws. On average, over 50 Americans moved to states with those perceived better employment opportunities every hour — night and day, seven days a week.
Those perceptions were accurate. Through the last one-third of a century since the late 1970s, employment growth in the right-to-work states was twice as great, in percentage terms, as in states without those laws.
Not surprisingly, income growth has been dramatically higher in the right to work states. And, despite the increasing number of mouths to feed in those states, income per person also rose faster.
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