Replication Data for: Organized Labor's Check on Rising Income Inequality in the U.S. States

This dataverse provides data and code necessary to replicate the results in my paper, "Organized Labor's Check on Rising Income Inequality in the U.S. States." Building on existing cross-national work, I provide evidence that organized labor, as a political institution, limits unequal income distributions in the U.S. states. The states are useful to our understanding of labor's influence on inequality as states differ in their acceptance of labor unions, base levels of inequality, political preferences, industries, and levels of development, but are all nested within a single overarching national framework. Over the 39 year period examined, states where unions maintain more members remain more equal within the labor market and after redistribution via government transfer. These effects persist after accounting for state level policy, demography, and economic conditions. However, states where union membership has the largest influence on inequality have also seen growing attempts to reduce unionization rates. Overall, I find that unions are still able to limit the growth of economic inequality in spite of declining levels of union membership.