My mom was a single parent. She raised my brother and me, paid every bill on time, and bought a house of her own, breaking into the middle class with hard work and a union job.
She also showed me how to make my own way in the world, and now she’s preparing for a retirement she spent decades earning.
It’s the vaunted American success story. Or at least it used to be. We know all too well that the same mobility and security my mom has achieved are eluding countless others today because of a system stacked in favor of the rich.
Working people struggle to buy groceries, pay utilities, and purchase homes while the wealthy fritter away obscene sums just because they can. Here’s the good news: It isn’t too late to take back what’s ours.
Tripling the percentage of union workers nationwide is exactly what’s needed to reset the scales, rebuild the middle class, and reverse much of the inequality that’s divided America into haves and have-nots.
That’s the key finding of a new study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a think tank in Washington, DC, that’s long worked alongside the United Steelworkers (USW) to deliver justice and opportunities for working people.
The study found that increasing the union membership rate to 30 percent would unleash a new era of collective power, forcing employers to come to the bargaining table and raise median wages by 14.5 percent.
That works out to about $7,700 more annually in a worker’s paycheck, or nearly $270,000 over the course of a 35-year career, enough to weather inflation, take vacations, buy a home, and still sock something away for retirement.
Let’s remember that ordinary Americans create wealth.
But the rich—CEOs, do-nothing shareholders, and the rest of the billionaire class—siphon it away. Ten percent of Americans control nearly 70 percent of the nation’s wealth, and believe me, these aren’t the folks showing up every day to do the tough, important jobs that keep America running.
Reclaiming our fair share of wealth is a first step. But a surge in unionization promises other sweeping gains, as EPI’s study points out.
For example, union members use our collective clout to win better working conditions. We fight discrimination and other unfair treatment on the job because solidarity, the source of our strength, renders an injury to one an injury to all.
We also wield our power to win paid sick leave, quality health care coverage, and other essentials that corporations and their cronies deny to other families.
Access to doctors is a basic need. Yet anti-worker members of Congress in 2025 gave billions in tax cuts to the wealthy, bloating their coffers even more, while simultaneously stripping struggling families of affordable health plans.
It’s within our means to end this kind of injustice once and for all.
A tripling of union membership would force employers to provide health care to many more workers, cutting the ranks of the uninsured by about 25 percent, according to EPI’s estimate. That means millions of people living better and longer.
Just as important, these kinds of changes pave the way to a bigger, stronger middle class with corresponding political power, seized from the rich. This rebalancing is the best way to keep Congress in check, ensuring it focuses on the common good and never again lines the pockets of the wealthy on the backs of everyone else.
Who, apart from the billionaires, would take issue with that?
Record numbers of Americans support unions and want to join one, signaling that the wave championed in the EPI study is already underway.
About 140 sawmill workers in Mississippi joined the USW in June, coming together despite the company’s nasty anti-union campaign to fight for brighter futures. Manufacturing workers, chemical workers, oil workers, library workers, animal rescue workers, and many others also joined our ranks over the past year, eager to realize the union difference.
Which boils down to this: We’re stronger together.
