• Ranvier
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    11 months ago

    Yeah, weird way to describe it. Why not just say percentage of workers in a union?

    • A_A@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Exactly ! (…and thanks for its meaning).
      The funniest part is the title also says : “You Read That Right” …well, no ! …I didn’t since it was unreadable for me :-O

    • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Because “union density” is shorter. Just as “GDP” is shorter than “sum of the income of everyone in a country”.

        • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          It’s jargon, like “OOP” and “VRAM”. The people who tend to refer to it will understand.

      • Ranvier
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        11 months ago

        I get the term after reading the article, I’ve just never heard it described that way before. Their own figures say union membership rates in the article which seems much clearer to me and has the same number of words as “union density rate.” Density seems to imply something more geographic or spatial, just seems like an odd way to describe it.

        • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          It’s an econ term, it doesn’t have to make sense to non-economists!

          For instance you would think the unemployment rate is the percentage of the population without employment, but no.

      • MagicShel@programming.dev
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        11 months ago

        Just as “GDP” is shorter than “sum of the income of everyone in a country” “who’s winning at capitalism”.

        • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Winning is a matter of perspective. There are plenty of people of who would not want to move to a country with higher GDP.