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For the better part of the last 60 years, Americans have been led to believe that the most viable path into a middle-class career is with a four-year degree and with it, often enough, thousands of dollars in accrued debt. Relatedly, some are calling recent dips in college enrollment a “crisis” that portends dire consequences for the economy. Not necessarily. Between 2020 and 2030, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that about 60 percent of new jobs in the economy will be in occupations that don’t typically require an associate’s, bachelor’s, or graduate degree. According to BLS, many of these jobs will be in construction, energy, transportation, equipment repair, as healthcare technicians and other occupations where most median wage rates already exceed national averages and don’t require workers to accrue college debt to qualify. Read the full article here.

It’s not just that supporting labor unions is good politics; it’s also good policy. American workers are quitting their jobs because they want family-sustaining wages, secure benefits, safe worksites, and less inequality. Employers are concerned about labor shortages and want predictable costs and a stable supply of skilled workers. The data show that labor unions are delivering. Read the entire article here

Minnesota union construction workers make, on average, over $8 more in hourly wages and are more likely to secure a number of other benefits as opposed to their non-union counterparts, according to a new report. The report found these characteristics come without a higher cost to Minnesota employers, who reside in a state with one of the nation’s highest rates of construction unionization. A team of researchers from the Midwest Economic Policy Institute, the Project for Middle Class Renewal at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Colorado State University Pueblo released the report this month detailing the personal and economic impact of unions in Minnesota’s construction industry. “Minnesota’s union construction industry, the data shows, is no more costly than the non-union alternative, even though it produces higher wages, more apprentices, safer work sites and less reliance on government assistance programs,” Frank Manzo, report author and policy director for the Midwest Economic Policy Institute, said in an interview. Read the entire article here

ST. PAUL — Union construction work in Minnesota pays better than the nonunion peers without inflating project costs in the $16 billion industry, according to anew study out last week. Union contractors in Minnesota collected an average hourly pay of $33 between 2015 and 2019, according to the study, $8 more than their nonunion counterparts and only $2 less than the average Minnesota college graduate. Coupled with other findings in the study, Midwest Economic Policy Institute Policy Director Frank Manzo said Tuesday, July 6, is the takeaway "that Minnesota's union construction industry is no more costly than the nonunion alternative even though it produces higher wages." Using U.S. Census Bureau data, researchers at the institute, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Colorado State University-Pueblo found construction workers in Minnesota not only earned an average hourly pay 32% greater than nonunion workers, but had greater access to pension plans and relied less on government assistance as well. Less than 1% of union construction workers used the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program between 2010 and 2019, according to the study, compared to 13.6% of nonunion construction workers. Read the entire article here

Currently, these programs serve nearly 11,000 Illinois residents, making it our state's seventh-largest private post-secondary educational enterprise. They also employ nearly 3,000 instructors and support staff. In our analysis, we found that the economic impact of program expenditures create nearly 1,400 jobs in the local economy, boost our state's economy by over $400 million and add nearly $30 million to state and local tax revenues. Read the entire article here