State and local government employees’ characteristics (mean) and shares under different labor legal frameworks, by decade

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Legal frameworks
Duty to bargain 1.9% 37.8% 53.8% 66.6% 64.8% 62.8%
Collective bargaining prohibited 9.6% 8.8% 13.5% 16.8% 18.4% 19.7%
Meet and confer 1.3% 9.0% 6.1% 8.2% 5.8% 6.5%
No state law 87.1% 44.4% 26.5% 8.4% 11.0% 11.0%
Dispute resolution procedures
Right to strike 0.0% 0.1% 9.3% 21.0% 20.5% 20.4%
Binding interest arbitration 0.0% 1.9% 7.7% 9.2% 9.7% 9.5%
Fact-finding 0.6% 24.7% 37.4% 35.3% 32.9% 32.5%
Mediation final step 0.0% 3.3% 9.6% 8.7% 8.6% 7.9%
Meet-and-confer mediation 0.0% 1.5% 4.2% 3.6% 0.7% 0.8%
Mediation initial step 0.0% 23.3% 49.5% 53.3% 50.9% 49.6%
Dues and fees collection
Dues checkoff 14.8% 42.6% 75.2% 85.0% 84.0% 83.4%
Open shop 15.8% 17.8% 23.7% 36.1% 38.5% 40.8%
Agency Shop 6.5% 10.5% 55.5% 50.1% 48.0% 45.9%
Characteristics
Real annual earnings $35,843 $43,194 $39,105 $45,010 $47,982 $51,552
Years of education 12.2 13.1 13.7 14.0 14.2 14.3
Bachelor’s degree only 10.8% 14.8% 14.9% 20.9% 23.8% 26.0%
Graduate education 11.2% 19.7% 24.0% 20.7% 21.4% 27.7%
College graduates plus 22.0% 34.4% 38.8% 41.6% 45.2% 53.7%
Age 40.6 41.8 40.1 41.9 43.4 45.9
Central city resident 31.4% 31.3% 21.6% 13.8% 12.5%
City noncentral resident 26.5% 31.3% 30.2% 27.5% 28.9%
City resident 57.9% 62.6% 51.8% 41.4% 41.5%
Usual weekly hours 41.8 42.4 42.7 42.6
Weeks worked in year 49.5 49.1 49.2 49.3 49.4 49.3
Female 26.4% 41.9% 45.5% 49.0% 52.5% 57.1%
Married 76.6% 75.2% 69.1% 68.7% 66.6% 66.9%
Black 9.2% 11.2% 13.6% 12.7% 13.3% 11.9%
Asian 0.8% 1.0% 1.6% 2.2% 2.5% 3.4%
Hispanic 2.3% 2.6% 4.4% 5.9% 7.6% 9.1%
Disabled 2.9% 3.9% 3.4%
State government employee 31.2% 32.8% 34.0% 33.5% 30.6%
Teacher 10.6% 20.7% 19.6% 20.1% 19.7% 24.5%
Police officer 3.2% 5.0% 5.2% 5.5% 6.5% 5.5%
Firefighter 1.8% 2.4% 2.2% 2.1% 2.1% 1.9%
Other local government employee 40.7% 40.3% 38.3% 38.2% 37.5%
State private sector unionization 29.7% 27.7% 23.1% 16.3% 13.5% 11.8%
Observations 72,278 128,967 422,135 484,578 582,663 144,125

Note: The 1% individual weighted sample is restricted to full-time employees of state and local government who worked for a full year in the year prior to the sample.

Source: Public Use Microdata Sample of the U.S. Census for 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000 and American Community Survey for 2010 (Ruggles et al. 2010) and NBER Collective Bargaining Law Data (Freeman and Valletta 1988)

View the underlying data on epi.org.