Table of Contents
What percentage of American workers belong to a union?
10.8 percent
“In 2020, the percent of wage and salary workers who were members of unions—the union membership rate—was 10.8 percent, up by 0.5 percentage point from 2019, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.
Are unions still popular?
Union enrollment has declined for decades, but union workers still earn 19\% more. Bureau of Labor Statistics data indicates that in 1983, 20.1\% of employed Americans were members of a union. By 2019, that share had decreased by roughly half to 10.3\%. But in 2020, that share ticked up slightly to 10.8\%.
How many people in the US belong to a union?
Industry and Occupation of Union Members In 2020, 7.2 million employees in the public sector and 7.1 million workers in the private sector belonged to unions. Union membership decreased by 428,000 in the private sector and showed little change in the public sector.
How much more do union workers make than nonunion workers?
Workers covered by a union contract in California earn an average of 12.9 percent more than non-union workers with similar demographic characteristics and working in similar industries. Overall, we estimate that unions increase workers’ earnings in California by $18.5 billion annually through collective bargaining.
What do Americans think of labor unions?
A majority of the public (55\%) now holds a favorable view of labor unions, while 33\% hold an unfavorable view. The share with a favorable view is down slightly from last year (60\%), but much higher than in 2011, when just 41\% viewed unions favorably.
What percentage of US workers belong to a union?
The share of U.S. workers who belong to a union has fallen since 1983, when 20\% of American workers were union members, though it did rise slightly between 2019 and 2020, according to a separate Center analysis. In 2020, 10.8\% of U.S. workers were in a union.
Is the decline in unions good or bad for working people?
More Americans view the long-term decline of organized labor negatively than positively, according to the Pew Research Center survey from earlier this year. About half (51\%) say the large reduction in union representation in recent decades has been mostly bad for working people, while 35\% say it has been mostly good.
How many manufacturing jobs are unionized in the US?
Manufacturing-type jobs, both union and non-union, have shriveled in both absolute and percentage terms. In 2000, 2.1 million of the nearly 11.1 million Americans in production occupations (19.0\%) were union members.