Do public sector unions lead to higher state deficits? No.

[telemann]

David Brooks, conservative editorial writer at the New York Times wrote that "states with public sector unions tend to run into financial crises." Several people have looked at that assertion and well, the data doesn't support that.



Here's why:



Union membership (public and private) and state deficits



Just public sector union membership and state deficits

Sources here, with lots of links to sources for material.

If the charts don't make much sense: Chris Hayes explains them:

Click to view

There are many reasons why the states are running high deficits (e.g. loss of funding for the pensions for a variety reasons: many pension funds were invested at several failed banking instutitions-- the California Public Employees' Retirement System lost nearly 1 billion dollars of its assets at Lehman Brothers when that firm collapsed), falling real estate values, the most protracted recession since the Great Depression, high unemployment, and a Federal government that faces the same issues). But it's not because of unions.