This would be a triumph for AFT if it didn’t come with a string of asterisks.

The first is the issue of retired members. AFT members are members for life. When they retire, they are not removed from the rolls, nor are they required to apply for retired membership or pay any dues. A growth in retired members actually constitutes a loss in income for AFT.

In 2023, the union added more than 11,500 retired members, accounting for almost two-fifths of the reported gain in total membership. It now has 471,582 retired members — 27.5% of its total.

The other major event for AFT in the fiscal year was the . The AAUP has 44,000 members. Previously, about 20,000 AAUP members also belonged to AFT. Now, they all do, accounting for a further increase of 24,000 members to AFT’s total this year.

Mergers and new affiliations with existing unions are a fun way to pump up raw membership totals, but they do nothing to increase the share of the overall workforce that is unionized.

The new members from AAUP aren’t really a boon to AFT’s bottom line. A substantial number work part time, which is true of many AFT members as well. AFT reported 1,716,448 total members for 2023, but only 43% of them work full-time.

The effect of all this is illustrated by AFT’s finances. Last year, the union collected close to $212 million in dues. This year, that number fell to $189 million — a strange phenomenon if it had actually recruited tens of thousands of new members.

But there’s no need to fear for the union’s finances. AFT is putting its money to fruitful use. It greatly increased investments in stocks, corporate bonds, mutual funds and U.S. Treasury notes, leading to a net growth of $28.2 million in its portfolio.

AFT spread its wealth around to its allies as well. The largest amounts went to:

— $1.5 million

— $816,000

— $600,000

— $520,000

— $500,000

— $500,000

— $500,000

AFT also donated $250,000 to the Amazon Labor Union, but since it spent more than $292,000 worth of purchases on Amazon, that looks like a wash.

Mostly, AFT spent its money on itself. Its payroll for 342 employees totaled almost $43.1 million, or an average of $126,000 each. The union spent an additional $18.7 million on benefits.

AFT President Randi Weingarten led the way, with a 2023 salary of $443,551, which was a 2% increase over 2022.

The National Education Association’s fiscal year runs from September through August, so its disclosure report won’t be available until the end of November. However, Union Report has already obtained internal union documents that indicate NEA lost 9,800 members during fiscal year 2022-23. Preliminary numbers for September 2023 show a continued decline of about 2,800 members, mostly from the ranks of school support employees.

It would be a strange circumstance if AFT were recruiting so many new members from non-union ranks while NEA was steadily losing unionized members. Both organizations are still powerful and influential, whatever their numbers, but the extent of their power depends upon which direction those numbers are trending. Politicians might be less likely to bind their futures to a sinking ship. This would open up a host of new possibilities for education reform.

Mike Antonucci’s Union Report appears most Wednesdays; see the full archive.

But those membership losses didn’t have a commensurate effect on the unions’ bottom line. On the contrary, the National Education Association and its state affiliates experienced significant boosts to revenue during the shutdown year.

The combined income of NEA and its state unions reached almost $1.75 billion in 2020-21, an increase of $49 million (2.9%) from the previous year. Almost all union revenue is exempt from income and capital gains taxes.

This financial information is derived from the unions’ annual disclosure reports for the Internal Revenue Service, detailing their income and expenditures. These are public records, but delays in reporting and availability mean a long wait before it is possible to gather comprehensive data from unions in all 50 states.

NEA national headquarters collected almost $397 million in revenue. Its richest affiliates were California ($222 million), New York ($167 million) and New Jersey ($153 million).

These large-membership states are self-sufficient, but many affiliates require national subsidies to pay the costs of union offices’ professional staff. Nine state affiliates received more than 20% of their total revenue directly from NEA. The Mississippi Association of Educators and NEA New Mexico were the most reliant on national funds.

Union employees are the primary beneficiaries of the bigger bankroll. NEA employed 513 staffers in Washington, D.C., of whom 396 earned six-figure salaries. Across the country, more than 2,300 NEA affiliate employees made more than $100,000 in salary.

Member dues supply most income, although periodically some unions receive a cash windfall through other means.

Both the North Carolina Association of Educators and the South Carolina Education Association saw dramatic growth in revenue due to the sale of properties. to a real estate developer for an estimated $20 million, while to the state for a highway widening project.

That union also benefited from $112,624 due to the from the federal government’s Small Business Administration.

Higher interest rates are a burden, but they did increase the value of the unions’ cash investments and greatly aided their financial ledgers in another way: by reducing pension and retiree health care liabilities.

Just like school districts and state governments, unions must be able to cover the future costs of their retired employees. These liabilities can grow to such a significant degree that in 2020, eight NEA state affiliates had a negative net worth. They were a combined $606.5 million in the red.

But the increase in interest rates allowed pension systems everywhere to recompute the discount rate, which is a method of expressing future liabilities in today’s dollars. Put simply, a higher discount rate means lower pension liabilities.

The change in the discount rate was large enough to push NEA affiliates in Connecticut, Michigan, Nevada and West Virginia into the black. Georgia, Illinois, New York and Washington reduced their liabilities by large amounts but remained in the red.

Any union that can add $49 million to its coffers while losing 70,000 members amid the near-total shutdown of work sites is not one that needs to fear diminished power and influence. NEA is too big to fail.

Mike Antonucci’s Union Report appears most Wednesdays; see the full archive.