In a recent meeting of the Joint Standing Committee on the Judiciary in West Virginia, WSU economics researcher John Deskins reported his findings of the differences between right-to-work and non-right-to-work states. He prefaced his remarks by acknowledging that with 25 states on each side of the law, the comparison should prove useful. Deskins stated, “we find that right-to-work does decrease union membership by about one-fifth, it does increase employment growth and it does increase output growth,” and stated that he would expect to see similar results if West Virginia were to become a right-to-work state. Union proponents have argued for years that union membership increases wages, and union-backed “research” organizations have attempted to provide data supporting this point of view. The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis (CDA) recently replicated a study by one such organization, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). CDA used EPI’s model, but fully controlled for cost of living in the analysis, and doing so showed that employees in right-to-work states have the same purchasing power as employees in non-right-to-work states. In fact, as the chart below indicates, forced-dues states contain the 10 highest positions when ranked for cost of living, whereas right-to-work states hold 11 of the 15 lowest cost of living slots. This article is long and detailed, and contains many graphics and charts (like the one below). We highly recommend reading it and bookmarking it as a reference. 
