The Impact of the War on Drugs on Union Density, 1973–2022

The War on Drugs (WoD) notoriously targeted poor people and communities, especially Black and Latinx people. Its negative impact on the formation and defense of unions has only recently been studied. This paper explores the magnitude of the WoD's role in increasing arrests and imprisonment, and its long shadow in probation and parole. It details the way it divided workers by race, and hammered the poor under the guise of fighting drugs. Incorporating unemployment and manufacturing's employment share, the paper shows that the WoD and the dramatic conservative turn it represented contributed substantially to the decline in union density.