The research was done by the Pennsylvania-based Commonwealth Foundation. Eighty-six percent of the money spent came from union dues.
Meanwhile, the $915 million spent in the 2024 election was an increase from $708 million that Commonwealth reported in the 2022 election cycle.
Aaron Withe, CEO of Freedom Foundation, applauds the Commonwealth Foundation for the research.
"These are union dues of around $1100 dollars a year of teachers, of state workers, county workers, city workers, all over the country, about seven million of them pay union dues into these big four unions, around $1100 a year, and the unions are taking it and spending it on a radical political agenda," Withe told AFN. "That's why in the last 5 years, we've seen so many public employees opt out of these unions and stop paying union dues."
Government unions’ heavy use of membership dues money for politics—more than what they collectively spent on representational activities—underlines a disturbing trend: the growing, overt reliance by union officials to spend member dues rather than political action committee funds on their political and ideological agendas, the report found.
Together, the NEA, AFT, SEIU, and AFSCME spent $488 million of members’ dues driving Democratic politics, economic redistribution, critical race theory, defunding the police, promoting abortion, and opposing school choice.
Withe added that public employee unions do not care about workers/members. They care about political candidates.
"Public employee unions attempt to justify their existence, but really, their existence is based on politics," said Withe. "They don't care about workers; they don't care about representing workers. That's why they spend a fraction of their budget on representing workers. They spend most of it on politics and gifts to 501(c)3s 501(c)4s that are left-leaning."
