The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America

by Timothy Snyder

In the 1980s, the federal government weakened the position of trade unions. The percentage of Americans in unionized jobs fell from about a quarter to under 10%. Private sector union membership fell still more sharply, from about 34% to 8% for men and from about 16% to 6% for women. The productivity of the American workforce grew throughout the period, at about 2% a year, but the wages of traditional workers increased more slowly, if at all. Over the same period, the pay of executives increased, sometimes drastically. At the same time, the United States was very weak on the basic policies that stabilized middle classes elsewhere: retirement pensions, public education, public transport, health care, paid vacation, and parental leave. The United States had the resources to give its workers and its citizens these basics. Yet a regressive trend in taxation policy made this more difficult. Whereas workers paid an increasing tax burden through payroll taxes, corporations and wealthy families saw theirs drop by half or more. Even as the percentage of income and wealth at the top of the American distribution increased, the percentage of tax expected from the most fortunate decreased. Since the 1980s, the tax rates paid by the top 0.1% of American earners fell from about 65% to about 35%, and for the top 0.01% from about 75% to below 25%.