YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The union membership rate – the percentage of wage and salary workers who were members of unions – was 10% in 2023, little changed from 2022, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The number of wage and salary workers belonging to unions, 14.4 million, also showed little movement in 2023.
In 1983, the first year for which comparable data are available, the union membership rate was 20.1% and there were 17.7 million union workers.
Highlights
• The union membership rate of public-sector workers (32.5%) continued to be more than five times higher than the rate of private-sector workers (6.0%).
• The highest unionization rates were among workers in education, training and library occupations (32.7%) and protective service occupations (31.9%).
• Men continued to have a higher union membership rate (10.5%) than women (9.5%)
• Black workers remained more likely to be union members than White, Asian, or Hispanic workers.
• Nonunion workers had median weekly earnings that were 86% of earnings for workers who were union members ($1,090 versus $1,263).
Industry and Occupation
In 2023, 7.0 million employees in the public sector belonged to unions, compared with 7.4 million workers in the private sector.
In the public sector, both union membership and the union membership rate (32.5%) were little changed over the year. In 2023, the union membership rate continued to be highest in local government (38.4%), which employs many workers in heavily unionized occupations, such as police officers, firefighters and teachers.
The number of union workers employed in the private sector increased by 191,000 to 7.4 million in 2023, while the unionization rate was unchanged at 6.0%. Industries with high unionization rates included utilities (19.9%), transportation and warehousing (15.9%), educational services (12.9%) and motion picture and sound recording industries (12.1%). Low unionization rates occurred in finance (1.2%), professional and technical services (1.3%), food services and drinking places (1.4%), and insurance (1.5%).
In 1983, the union membership rate for private-sector workers in nonagricultural industries was 16.8%. Since that time, this rate (at 6.1% in 2023) has generally trended down.
The public-sector union membership rate showed little net change from 1983 (36.7%) to 2011 (37.0%) but has since declined to 32.5%.
Among occupational groups, the highest unionization rates in 2023 were in education, training and library occupations (32.7%) and in protective service occupations (31.9%).
Unionization rates were lowest in sales and related occupations (2.9%), food preparation and serving related occupations (3.2%), computer and mathematical occupations (3.8%), and management occupations (4.1%).
Selected Characteristics
In 2023, the unionization rate for women was little changed over the year at 9.5%, while the rate for men was unchanged at 10.5%. Both the number of women, at 6.6 million, and the number of men, at 7.8 million, who were union members changed little over 2022.
Among the major race and ethnicity groups, Black workers continued to have a higher union membership rate in 2023 (11.8%) than White workers (9.8%), Asian workers (7.8%) and Hispanic workers (9.0%).
By age, workers ages 45 to 54 had the highest union membership rate in 2023, at 12.6%. Younger workers – those ages 16 to 24 – had the lowest union membership rate, at 4.4%.
In 2023, the union membership rate for full-time workers (10.9%) was more than double that for part-time workers (5.2%).
Earnings
Among full-time wage and salary workers, union members had median usual weekly earnings of $1,263 in 2023, while nonunion workers had weekly earnings of $1,090. In addition to coverage by a collective bargaining agreement, these differences reflect a variety of influences, including variations in the distributions of union members and nonunion employees by occupation, industry, age, firm size or geographic region.
Membership by State
In 2023, 31 states and the District of Columbia had union membership rates below the U.S. average (10.0%), while 19 states had rates above it. All states in both the East South Central and West South Central divisions had union membership rates below the national average, while all states in both the Middle Atlantic and Pacific divisions had rates above it.
Eleven states had union membership rates below 5.0% in 2023. South Carolina had the lowest rate (2.3%). The next lowest rates were in North Carolina and South Dakota (2.7% and 3.6%, respectively). Two states had union membership rates over 20.0% in 2023: Hawaii (24.1%) and New York (20.6%).
In 2023, about 29% of the 14.4 million union members lived in just two states (California at 2.5 million and New York at 1.7 million).
SOURCE: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.