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factoid
More than 60% of workers age 16-24 work in the nation's service sector.

In San Francisco, the Young Workers United successfully fought for a raise in the minimum wage. With their efforts, it jumped to $8.50 an hour.

Unionized young workers earn 12.4 percent more in wages or $1.75 more per hour

Unionized young workers are 24 percent more likely to have a pension plan

Unionized women workers earn 11.2 percent more in wages or $2.00 more per hour than non-union women workers.

Unionized women workers are 19 percent more likely to have employer-provided health insurance than non-union women workers.

For the average woman, joining a union increases her probability of having health insurance more than finishing a four-year college degree would.

Service sector workers in unions are about 19 percentage points more likely to have health insurance than those not in unions

For service sector workers in low-wage occupations, unionization raises wages by over 15%.

Unionized service sector workers in low-wage occupations are 26 percent more likely to have health insurance and 23 percent more likely to be in a pension plan.

On average, unionization raises service sector workers' wages by over 10% – about $2.00 per hour

For workers in the 15 lowest-paying occupations – ranging from maintenance workers to teachers’ assistants– unionization raises wages by just over 16% or about $1.75 per hour

Union workers in the 15 lowest-wage occupations are 25% more likely to have health insurance than similar non-union workers in the same occupations.

Unionized Latino workers earn 17.6 percent more in wages or $2.60 more per hour than non-union Latinos.

Latinos are also the fastest growing group in the labor movement. In 1983 they accounted for 6 percent of the unionized workers. By 2007 they represented almost 12 percent.

Unionized Latino workers are 27 percent more likely to have a pension plan than similar non-union Latinos.

Unionization has raised black workers' wages 12 percent --about $2.00 per hour

Unionized African-American workers are about 16 percentage points more likely to have health insurance and about 19 percentage points more likely to have a pension than their nonunion counterparts.

For the typical U.S. worker – right in the middle of the national pay scale – unionization raises wages about 14%.

Unionization raises the likelihood of having health insurance or a pension by over 25 percentage points for younger workers.

For low-wage workers, unionization raises wages about 21%

Immigrant workers in unions were 50 percent more likely to have employer- provided health insurance and almost twice as likely to have an employer-provided pension plan than immigrant workers who were not in unions.

Among immigrant workers in the 15 lowest-paying occupations, union members earned almost 20 percent more per hour than those workers who were not in unions.

On average, unionization raised immigrants’ wages by 17 percent – about $2.00 per hour.

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Young Workers and Social Security

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Young Workers and Social Security

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How Secure Are You?

There's been a lot of talk about young people and Social Security recently.  Will it be there when we retire? Should we privatize the system and try to handle accounts on our own?

How would a private account impact you? Click here to get it calculated.

 What Privitazation Means For Young Workers:

Massive new federal debt in order to pay current benefits.

The plan commonly viewed as a “consensus” version from the President’s Social Security Commission, as the press has widely reported, would require $2.2 trillion in new borrowing over just the next ten years (and much more after that).

Cuts to your guaranteed benefits would be so severe that you could not make up the difference with money from your private account.

Many plans include a benefit cut that is so severe it will produce a net loss of income, on average, with a massive loss for people whose investments do not work out.

Changes in the way Social Security benefits are calculated would result in cuts in guaranteed benefits for everyone not just people who choose to participate in private accounts program.

This is a critically important aspect of most privatization plans that has not received significant attention.  While, as the President said in his State of the Union Address, the plans offer “voluntary personal retirement accounts,” the benefit cuts are mandatory for everyone, regardless of whether they choose to invest.  For young people whose choice would be to stick with a guaranteed benefit, the plans exact a devastating price—cuts approaching 50% within their lifetimes.

A new poll released by Rock the Vote, AARP and the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, shows that nearly 60% of 18-39 year olds oppose private accounts if it would mean “a lower guaranteed benefit in retirement.”  Similar to conclusions in previous polls, the more people know about privatization, the less likely they are to support it.  

The results of this poll also show that though many younger adults are initially responsive to the idea of investing their own Social Security money, they no longer support privatization when they learn it means dramatically cutting benefits and increasing the national debt.  

Get some real statistics on Social Security. Then print them out and share them at work!

See how Rock the Vote breaks down Social Security here.  then, volunteer to hook up with a street team to show how much you *heart* Social Security!  Cick here to hook it up!

Here are a few resources to help you sort it out!

 
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