On Sunday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo came out in favor of a two-tiered minimum wage hike for New York State and New York City, respectively:

Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, said he is proposing the creation of a two-tiered minimum wage for New York, setting the hourly rates at $10.50 for New York state and $11.50 for New York City by the end of 2016. The state’s current minimum wage is $8.75, after the state legislature in 2013 passed a graduated increase to $9 by the end of 2015. [WSJ]

Cuomo’s proposal is a far cry from the hike to $15/hr that low-wage workers and their allies have been demanding in a nationwide series of strikes, but even the modest increase that Cuomo is proposing would be a step in the right direction. 

A new sociological study suggests that union membership makes people happier, and not just because union members earn higher wages. The authors, Patrick Flavin and Gregory Shufeldt, scoured the World Values survey and found that union members were more satisfied with their lives than non-members. Then they tried to figure out why:

Yet as Mr. Flavin and Mr. Shufeldt told Op-Talk in an email: “Labor union membership still has benefits, and that this is true for all union members. Simply put, if one goal of labor unions is to boost the quality of life for their members, our study provides empirical evidence that they are succeeding.”

In their study, they tease out four “pathways” by which being a union member might improve quality of life compared with not being a member: “These include having greater satisfaction with one’s experiences while working, feeling greater job security, being afforded numerous opportunities for social interaction and integration, and enhancing the participatory benefits associated with more engaged democratic citizenship.” [NYT]

So, the advantages of belonging to a union are better working conditions, more respect, enhanced security, more friends, and a voice in society. That’s enough to make anyone happier.

You can read a draft of the paper here. (.pdf)

The Best of the Week’s News 

• America’s Dirtiest Cops: A Rio Grande Gothic

• Managers to drive trains during Southern Rail lockout. What could possibly go wrong?

• GOP word wizard Frank Luntz is back, and he’s working for the Koch Brothers.

• A Russian soldier vanishes.

2015 will be a great year for socially conscious journalism. 

Remember to get your Hillman Prize entries in. The deadline for the Canadian Hillman Prize is Jan 9 and the deadline for all other Hillman Prizes is Jan 30.