If you want a safer workplace, higher wages, or more time to spend away from work entirely, there’s no better tool than a union. But a large body of research has also shown that unionization brings with it a whole host of benefits outside the workplace, yielding societies that are healthier, more democratic, community-minded, and even more abundant in happiness.

In this regard, a series of insights published last month by the Economic Policy Institute confirm and reinforce plenty of what we already knew. Unions, needless to say, exert an overwhelmingly positive influence wherever enough workers are fortunate enough to belong to them — as the EPI’s researchers demonstrate in their analysis.

As you might expect, states with higher union densities also tend to boast higher wages. In the seventeen states with the highest union densities, minimum wages are an average of 19 percent higher than the national average and 40 percent higher than minimum wages in low-union-density states. Residents in high-union-density states also tend to enjoy better health coverage, superior unemployment insurance, and are more likely to benefit from paid parental and medical leave.