August 24, 2009
Corporate Tax and Union Wages
by Kail Padgitt
A new paper from NBER finds:
American workers who belong to unions are paid more than their non-union counterparts, and this difference is greater in low-tax locations, reflecting that unions and employers share tax savings associated with low tax rates. In 2000 the difference between average union and non-union hourly wages was $1.88 greater in states with corporate tax rates below four percent than in states with tax rates of nine percent and above. Controlling for observable worker characteristics, a one percent lower state tax rate is associated with a 0.36 percent higher union wage premium, suggesting that workers in a fully unionized firm capture roughly 54 percent of the benefits of low tax rates.
Tax Foundation Senior Fellow Bob Carroll has also written about the effects of the corporate tax on wages. You can find his most recent paper here.
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