Pittsburgh hosts one of the largest Labor Day parades in the country. It is only fitting then that today’s post focuses on a new report from the Illinois Economic Policy Institute and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign finds that America added more than 411,000 union members in 2025, the largest one-year increase since 2008. The growth was driven overwhelmingly by Democratic legislatures that protect, restore, or strengthen collective bargaining rights. That sta