The common-sense folks in rural America do, including the farmers and ranchers and organizations you’ll see named here. Working families in our communities have been losing ground since long before the current economic crisis hit.

We care about communities and we care about our businesses. We want fair prices for what we sell. And we’re smart enough to know that middle-class wage-earners are more likely to be able to pay those prices than people struggling to make it on rock bottom wages.

That’s why we support the Employee Free Choice Act. The Act will make it easier for workers, rural and urban, to join labor unions - and bargain for higher wages and benefits - and rebuild the middle class.

Some very smart economists are helping us understand the connection between higher wages and healthy rural economies. Paul Krugman, our most recent Nobel prize winner in economics, wrote that “falling wages are a symptom of a sick economy.” He went even farther and said that falling wages “can make the economy even sicker.” (New York Times, May 4, 2009) This is certainly true for rural America. In the mid-1990s, a University of Minnesota study found the state’s rural counties had income distributions more like Sri Lanka than Sweden. If that’s not evidence of a disappearing middle class, we’re not sure what is.

Dr. Richard A. Levins is Professor Emeritus of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota and pulls no punches when he explains: “Labor unions are the only economic force I know of that consistently and effectively works to keep wages at levels that will support strong economies. We must make it easier, not more difficult, for all Americans, both urban and rural, to negotiate wages that will rebuild the failing middle class.”