Public-Sector Unions Spent $915M on Politics in 2024 — 86% From Member Dues

A new Commonwealth Foundation report tallied the political spending of the four largest public-sector unions — NEA, AFT, SEIU, and AFSCME — during the 2024 election cycle. The number: $915 million combined. 86% of it ($650 million) came from member dues.

For context, the four unions’ combined political spending was up significantly from $708 million in the 2022 cycle. About 33% of total union spending went to general overhead and administration, and roughly 25% — $642 million — went to “representational activities” (contract negotiations and grievance processing). Political and progressive activism — $755 million in federal/national spending plus $160 million in state-level affiliate spending — surpassed both other categories.

The report’s authors argue most members don’t realize how much of their dues funds political activity rather than direct representation. The unions point to PAC contributions (a small share — 14% — of total political spending, funded by voluntary donations) as the appropriate measure of political activity, and characterize the broader “progressive activism” spending as advocacy on policy issues that affect members’ working conditions.

From an employer’s perspective, two things are worth noting:

1. This report is going to be cited by every state legislature considering paycheck protection laws, opt-in/opt-out reform, or restrictions on automatic dues deduction in 2026. It’s a data point that travels well politically.

2. Union members who care about this issue have legal avenues. In the public sector, Janus v. AFSCME (2018) already established that non-members cannot be required to pay fees. The question whether members can object to having their dues used for political activity is being litigated in multiple states.

For private-sector employers, the report is less directly relevant — private-sector unions face different rules (Beck objectors, federal preemption) — but the public conversation it drives will spill over into private-sector debates about transparency, opt-in requirements, and the use of dues for non-representational purposes.

Unions argue political engagement is inseparable from worker advocacy. Critics argue dues funding political activity members may oppose is fundamentally an agency problem. There’s truth in both positions.