An estimated one out of five employees in this country works for some branch of government. Because policies concerning the compensation of these employees rest on assumptions about the economic dynamics of the public sector, the issue of public sector employment is of vital importance in the analysis of the national economy. In Public Sector Payrolls, leading economists explore the independent and interdependent functioning of the public and private sectors and their effect on the economy as a whole. The volume, developed from a 1984 National Bureau of Economic Research conference, focuses on various labor issues in military and other governmental employment. Several contributors discuss compensation in the armed forces and its relationship to that in the private sector, as well as the interaction between the military and the private sector in the employment of youth. This latter is of particular interest because studies of youth employment have generally ignored the important influence of military hiring practices on labor market conditions. In other contributions, the response of wages and employment in the public sector to economic conditions is analyzed, and a detailed study of government pension plans is presented. Also included is a theoretical and empirical analysis of comparable worth in the public sector from the viewpoint of analytical labor economics. The volume concludes with a look at public school teachers' salaries in the context of current debates over improving the quality of American education. A valuable resource to policymakers, Public Sector Payrolls will be an important addition to research in the field of labor economics.

Praise for previous editions of The State of Working America: "The State of Working America remains unrivaled as the most-trusted source for a comprehensive understanding of how working Americans and their families are faring in today's economy."--Robert B. Reich"It is the inequality of wealth, argue the authors, rather than new technology (as some would have it), that is responsible for the failure of America's workplace to keep pace with the country's economic growth. The State of Working America is a well-written, soundly argued, and important reference book."--Library Journal "If you want to know what happened to the economic well-being of the average American in the past decade or so, this is the book for you. It should be required reading for Americans of all political persuasions."--Richard Freeman, Harvard University "A truly comprehensive and useful book that provides a reality check on loose statements about U.S. labor markets. It should be cheered by all Americans who earn their living from work."--William Wolman, former chief economist, CNBC's Business Week "The State of Working America provides very valuable factual and analytic material on the economic conditions of American workers. It is the very best source of information on this important subject."--Ray Marshall, University of Texas, former U.S. Secretary of Labor"An indispensable work . . . on family income, wages, taxes, employment, and the distribution of wealth."--Simon Head, The New York Review of Books "No matter what political camp you're in, this is the single most valuable book I know of about the state of America, period. It is the most referenced, most influential resource book of its kind."--Jeff Madrick, author, The End of Affluence "This book is the single best yardstick for measuring whether or not our economic policies are doing enough to ensure that our economy can, once again, grow for everybody."--Richard A. Gephardt "The best place to review the latest developments in changes in the distribution of income and wealth."--Lester ThurowThe State of Working America, prepared biennially since 1988 by the Economic Policy Institute, includes a wide variety of data on family incomes, wages, taxes, unemployment, wealth, and poverty-data that enable the authors to closely examine the effect of the economy on the living standards of the American people.

From workers' wages to presidential elections, labor unions once exerted tremendous clout in American life. In the immediate post-World War II era, one in three workers belonged to a union. The fraction now is close to one in five, and just one in ten in the private sector. The only thing big about Big Labor today is the scope of its problems. While many studies have explained the causes of this decline, What Unions No Longer Do shows the broad repercussions of labor's collapse for the American economy and polity. Organized labor was not just a minor player during the middle decades of the twentieth century, Jake Rosenfeld asserts. For generations it was the core institution fighting for economic and political equality in the United States. Unions leveraged their bargaining power to deliver benefits to workers while shaping cultural understandings of fairness in the workplace. What Unions No Longer Do details the consequences of labor's decline, including poorer working conditions, less economic assimilation for immigrants, and wage stagnation among African-Americans. In short, unions are no longer instrumental in combating inequality in our economy and our politics, resulting in a sharp decline in the prospects of American workers and their families.

Study of the impact of trade unions on working conditions and labour relations in the USA - based on a comparison of unionized workers and nonunionized workers, examines wage determination, fringe benefits, wage differentials, employment security, labour productivity, etc.; discusses trade union power and incidence of corruption among trade union officers; notes declining rate of trade unionization in the private sector. Graphs and references.

Literature survey of statistical analysis and empirical studies dealing with relative wage differentials of unionized workers and nonunionized workers in the USA, 1967-1979 - reviews econometric models, evaluation technique and methodology employed for examining the impact of trade unions on wage structure; evaluates statistical methods, estimating the influence of race, sex, occupational status, regional disparity, size of enterprise, etc. On collective bargaining models. Bibliography, statistical tables.