Jobs, Labor And The 1936 GM Strike : The Indicator from Planet Money

The US economy added another 1.8 million jobs in the month of July. The good news: It's the third-straight month of improvement since the beginning of the lockdowns related to the coronavirus pandemic, and it beat expectations. The bad news: It's a lot less than the 4.8 million jobs added in June, and it leaves the economy still down 12.9 million jobs.

The mass layoffs have revealed just how poorly many American workers are paid, and how few protections they have. And that's got a lot of people thinking about labor unions. Union membership has been in steady decline for the last 40 years. The resulting lack of worker power when it comes to negotiating pay and benefits is one of the reasons corporate growth in the US has been so strong. That's been a big boost for company profits and thus for the stock market. But it has also led to a stagnation in wage growth and worker security, which many argue hasn't been so good for the economy at large.