Passage: After 1960 public sector unions grew rapidly and secured good wages and high pensions for their members. While manufacturing and farming steadily declined, state- and local-government employment quadrupled from 4 million workers in 1950 to 12 million in 1976 and 16.6 million in 2009. In 2009 the U.S. membership of public sector unions surpassed membership of private sector unions for the first time, at 7.9 million and 7.4 million respectively. In 2011 states faced a growing fiscal crisis and the Republicans had made major gains in the 2010 elections. Public sector unions came under heavy attack especially in Wisconsin, as well as Indiana, New Jersey and Ohio from conservative Republican legislatures. Conservative state legislatures tried to drastically reduce the abilities of unions to collectively bargain.  Conservatives argued that public unions were too powerful since they helped elect their bosses, and that overly generous pension systems were too heavy a drain on state budgets.
How many jobs did state and local-government raise between 1950-1976? How many millions did public sector union membership surpass private sector union membership by? How many more millions of workers were there in 1978 than in 1950? How many more state and government jobs were there in 2009 than 1976? How many more union jobs were there in 2009 compared to 1950? How many state and local government employees increased from 1950 to 2009? How many states did public sector unions come under attack from Republican legislatures? How many states had public sector unions come under heavy attack? How many things did the Conservatives argue public unions were too powerful for? How many years did it take for state and local government employment to go from 4 million workers to 16.6 million? How many years did it take to quadruple state- and local-government employment? What did the Conservatives argue public unions were too powerful for? Which states had the public sector unions come under heavy attack? Which year had the most workers?