After 45 years of driving a cab in New York City, Beresford Simmons says the emergence of the  National Taxi Workers Alliance  in the past few years is helping his family and those of other drivers reach the middle class.

Simmons’ story is one of three illustrating that unions make the middle class strong, giving workers a voice in our economy, portrayed in  a trio of new videos  by the  Center for American Progress Action Fund .

Both Democrats and Republicans stress that the ability for people to move up the economic ladder to build better lives is at the heart of the American Dream. But new data from the Pew Center on the States pits the Republican tenet on economic mobility against another deeply held Republican belief that unions are a heavy and evil anchor on the economy that must be cut away.  

Where there is a strong union movement, there is more economic mobility. If unions are strengthened, upward mobility will increase.

New figures from the U.S. Census Bureau today show that the middle class received the smallest share of the nation’s income since these data were first reported. The middle 60 percent of households received only 45.7 percent of the nation’s income in 2011, down from the historical peak of 53.2 percent in 1968. But writers David Madland and Nick Bunker at the Center for American Progress Action Fund  say:

By advancing the interests of the middle class in the workplace and in our democracy, unions help build and strengthen the middle class.

A new report sheds light on how the shrinking middle class can be tied to a growing decline of America’s roads, bridges, transit systems and energy grids—because "high levels of economic inequality have distorted our democratic process."

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)—the key agency in ensuring workers’ rights—is facing an unprecedented assault from partisan politicians and the 1 percent.

Cuts instituted by Congress for the 2011 fiscal year eliminate some 370,000 jobs, while endangering the public and delaying necessary repairs and infrastructure work that will only be more expensive to complete in the future, according to a new report from the Center for American Progress (CAP).

During the height of the Wisconsin protests against Gov. Walker’s attacks on workers’ rights, chants of “the people, united, will never be defeated” pulsated through the Wisconsin state House. The shaking walls could be heard not just inside the Capitol, but for quite a distance outside. And thanks to the power of the Internet, they could be heard around the world.

A handful of states this year have introduced bills to raise their minimum wage. That’s generated the usual cries from business groups and the regular gang of lawmakers who fight darn near every piece of pro-worker legislation that comes along. 

The United States can lead the global economy of the future but it will require a combination of government policies that level the playing field and encourage manufacturing and innovation and corporations willing to make changes in the way they do business, three experts said today.