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Recommended Reading: March-April: Economic Inequality

Highline College's librarians recommend materials from the library collection on a wide variety of topics.

Economic Inequality, Democracy, and Labor Unions

This Recommended Reading guide offers a starting point for exploring the relationship between economic inequality, democracy, and labor unions. 

In this guide:

  • Selected Videos
  • Economic Inequality Facts
  • Labor Union Facts
  • Books from the Library (Also on Recommended Reading Shelf in Library Main Floor)

Selected Videos

At the River I Stand (1993)

A documentary film about the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers' strike and the last few months of the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The documentary explores the relationship between labor rights and civil rights and shows how King sought a form of economic democracy after successfully campaigning for the passage of civil rights and voting rights legislation.

AFL-CIO, a major labor organization, created the following video called "The Union Difference."

Economic Inequality Facts

What is the Gini coefficient? The Gini coefficient, or Gini index, is a statistical measure of economic inequality and wealth distribution among a population. A value of zero represents perfect economic equality, and a value of one represents perfect economic inequality. The Gini coefficient helps to visualize income inequality in a more digestible way. For example, according to the Gini coefficient, the District of Columbia and the state of New York have the greatest amount of income inequality in the U.S. with a score of 0.51, and Utah has the greatest income equality with a score of 0.43.

Household income distribution according to the Gini Index of income inequality in the United States from 1990 to 2021

Labor Union Facts

Books in the Library