Union membership has been declining since 1983, and reached a historic low in 2023. There was a slight rise in 2020, but this has been attributed to union members being less likely to lose their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2023, the rate of union membership declined again to ten percent. Despite this constant decline, the number of workers represented by a union increased in 2023.

The rate of employees represented by unions has been declining since 1983, and reached a historic low in 2023 with 11.2 percent of employees represented. Employees represented by unions are not necessarily union members themselves, rather, their jobs are covered by a union or an employee association contract. The rate of union membership can be found here.

In 2023, the number of workers who represented by unions amounted to about 16.19 million, an increase from 2022, but an overall decline since 1983. Employees represented by unions are not necessarily union members themselves, rather they are employed in roles where their contracts are covered by a union or similar collective bargaining agreement.

The number of workers represented by a labor union in the United States has remained relatively steady among minority racial and ethnic groups in the United States, but has significantly decreased among white workers. The number of Hispanic and Latino workers represented by a union overtook the number of Black people represented in 2017.

The total number of union members in the United States can be found here.

The share of workers in the United States who are represented by labor unions has been on the decline since 1983. While rates of union representation have gotten closer between men and women, the rate of male union representation has declined more drastically than that of women. In 2023, 11.6 percent of working men were represented by unions compared to 10.7 percent of women.

Amid growing evidence of “unequal democracy” in the United States, labor unions can play a potentially important role by ensuring that low income citizens’ opinions receive more equal consideration when elected officials make policy decisions. To investigate this possibility, I evaluate the relationship between labor union strength and representational equality across the states and find evidence that states with higher levels of union membership weigh citizens’ opinions more equally in the policymaking process. In contrast, there is no relationship between the volume of labor union contributions to political campaigns in a state and the equality of political representation. These findings suggest that labor unions promote greater political equality primarily by mobilizing their working class members to political action and, more broadly, underscore the important role organized labor continues to play in shaping the distribution of political power across American society.

Labor unions, or trade unions as they are known in Europe, are organizations formed by workers in order to represent their collective interests, particularly in relation to wages and working conditions. Historically, labor unions emerged during the industrial revolution of the nineteenth century to represent the interests of industrial workers, who flocked to work in factories, mines, and other growing manufacturing enterprises. In most high-income countries, labor unions reached their peak during the post-WWII period, when governments mediated between the interests of labor unions and the owners of capital. With the economic crises of the 1970s, however, the labor movement suffered historic defeats in Europe and North America, with union density declining rapidly in many countries due to a host of pro-market and anti-union policies which have come to be referred to as 'neoliberalism'. Labor unions today In the twenty-first century, labor unions have retreated from their key role in national economic decisions in many countries, as globalization has lowered barriers to movement of labor, enabled 'off-shoring' jobs to lower wage countries, and promoted the lowering of labor standards in order to pursue cost competitiveness. In spite of this trend, certain regions still showcase high levels of union density and retain their traditions of unions being involved in determining economic policy. Notably, the Nordic countries make up five of the top six most unionized countries, with Iceland in first place being followed by Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and then Norway.

Other notable trends among the top placed countries are states which have had a historical relationship with communism (often a key driver of the labor movement), such as Cuba, Vietnam, China, and Kazakhstan. In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, labor unions and the wider labor movement has become more prominent, as workers have sought to fight for health & safety conditions in the workplace, as well as to combat high inflation related to the pandemic.

In 2023, union members accounted for 4.3 percent of wage and salary workers in Virginia, compared with 3.7 percent in 2022,the union membership rate for the state was at its peak in 1992, when it averaged 9.3 percent, and at its low point in 2007 and 2022 at 3.7 percent.Nationwide, union members accounted for 10.0 percent of employed wage and salary workers in 2023. The rate was little changed from the previous year. Since 1989, when comparable state data became available, union membership rates in Virginia have been below the U.S. average union membership by at least 5 percentage points. Virginia had 176,000 union members in 2023. In addition to these members, another 50,000 wage and salary workers in Virginia were represented by a union on their main job or covered by an employee association or contract while not union members themselves.

In 2023, there were around 14.14 million workers who were members of labor unions in the United States. Despite a general decline in union membership, this was an increase from 2022, when there were roughly 14.29 billion union members in the United States.

Labor unions, also known as trade unions, reached their peak in the advanced industrial countries of the G7 and Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) in the late twentieth century; since the 1980s however, their memberships have declined drastically, in some countries by as much as 50 percent. The labor movement arose in the nineteenth century to represent workers' interests in collective bargaining and to protests against poor wages and work conditions. From their peak in the twentieth century, unions have declined to represent much smaller numbers of workers today, in many countries being active mainly among public sector workers, such as in the United States. The rise and fall of union power In their rise during the twentieth century, labor unions were tightly connected to political parties of social democratic or socialist bent, while also being connected with Christian democrats in some continental European countries. As these parties came to power in the post-WWII period, unions were institutionalized into a system of social partnership with employers and the government in many countries. This agreement minimized labor disputes, while focusing on increasing productivity, which led to a period of unprecedented economic growth. As this system ran up against intractable economic problems in the 1970s, however, parties came to power who pursued a 'neoliberal' agenda of liberalization of the labor market and the privatization of nationalized companies. Since the late 1970s, these policies have caused union membership to decline drastically, as unions could engage in the same level of collective bargaining in a more interconnected and globalized international economy.

The number of workers in the United States who are represented by labor unions has been on the decline since 1983. There has been a net decline of around four million union members among the male population in the U.S. since 1983. Women, on the other hand, have seen a increase of around 600,000 members. The total number of union members in the United States can be found here.

The number of workers in the United States who are represented by labor unions has been on the decline, particularly among the white population. Comparatively, the number of Hispanic and Latino union members has increased by nearly 800,000 since the year 2000. The total number of union members in the United States can be found here.

The rate of union membership in the United States has been on the decline since 2000 across all races and ethnicities. The Black and African American working population has maintained the highest rates of union membership. Between 2022 and 2023, Asian workers saw the largest increase in the rate of union membership decreased from 8.3 percent to 7.8 percent. The total number of union members in the United States can be found here.

The once-a-decade decennial census was conducted in April 2010 by the U.S. Census Bureau. This count of every resident in the United States was mandated by Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution and all households in the U.S. and individuals living in group quarters were required by law to respond to the 2010 Census questionnaire. The data collected by the decennial census determine the number of seats each state has in the U.S. House of Representatives and is also used to distribute billions in federal funds to local communities. The questionnaire consisted of a limited number of questions but allowed for the collection of information on the number of people in the household and their relationship to the householder, an individual's age, sex, race and Hispanic ethnicity, the number of housing units and whether those units are owner- or renter-occupied, or vacant. Results for sub-state geographic areas in New Mexico were released in a series of data products. These data come from Summary File 1 (SF-1). The geographic coverage for SF-1 includes the state, counties, places (both incorporated and unincorporated communities), tribal lands, school districts, census tracts, block groups and blocks, among others. Table DC10_00856 is for Union County and all census blocks in the county. The table shows average household size for all occupied housing units combined and for owner- and renter-occupied housing units. This file, along with file descriptions (in Word and text formats) are available in a single zip file.

The number of workers in the United States who are represented by labor unions has been on the decline since 1983. While the number of women represented by a union has remained relatively stable, the number of men represented by a union had declined significantly since 1983. In 2023, around 8.73 million men were represented by unions compared to 7.46 million women.

Abstract (en): This special topic poll, conducted April 30 to May 6, 1996, is part of a continuing series of monthly surveys that solicit public opinion on the presidency and on a range of other political and social issues. This poll sought Americans' views on the most important problems facing the United States, their local communities and their own families. Respondents rated the public schools, crime, and drug problems at the national and local levels, their level of optimism about their own future and that of the country, and the reasons they felt that way. Respondents were asked whether they were better off financially than their parents were at their age, whether they expected their own children to be better off financially than they were, and whether the American Dream was still possible for most people. Respondents then compared their expectations about life to their actual experiences in areas such as job security, financial earnings, employment benefits, job opportunities, health care benefits, retirement savings, and leisure time. A series of questions asked whether the United States was in a long-term economic and moral decline, whether the country's main problems were caused more by a lack of economic opportunity or a lack of morality, and whether the United States was still the best country in the world. Additional topics covered immigration policy and the extent to which respondents trusted the federal, state, and local governments. Demographic variables included respondents' sex, age, race, education level, marital status, household income, political party affiliation, political philosophy, voter registration and participation history, labor union membership, the presence of children in the household, whether these children attended a public school, and the employment status of respondents and their spouses. The data contain a weight variable (WEIGHT) that should be used in analyzing the data. This poll consists of "standard" national representative samples of the adult population with sample balancing of sex, race, age, and education. ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: Created variable labels and/or value labels.; Created online analysis version with question text.; Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.. Persons aged 18 and over living in households with telephones in the contiguous 48 United States. Households were selected by random-digit dialing. Within households, the respondent selected was the adult living in the household who last had a birthday and who was at home at the time of interview. 2009-10-29 First names were removed from the data file. A full product suite including online analysis with question text has been added. The location of the weight variable was also corrected. telephone interviewThe data available for download are not weighted and users will need to weight the data prior to analysis. The data collection was produced by Chilton Research Services of Radnor, PA. Original reports using these data may be found via the ABC News Polling Unit Website.According to the data collection instrument, code 3 in the variable Q909 (Education Level) included respondents who answered that they had attended a technical school.The original data file contained four records per case and was reformatted into a data file with one record per case. To protect respondent confidentiality, respondent names were removed from the data file.The CASEID variable was created for use with online analysis.

This poll, conducted June 23-26, 1994, is part of a continuing series of monthly surveys that solicit public opinion on a range of political and social issues. Respondents were asked to give their opinions of President Bill Clinton and his handling of the presidency, the economy, foreign affairs, health care, and the welfare system. Views were sought on the most important issues facing the country, the condition of the national economy, whether President Clinton was seeking the right or wrong changes for the country, if he made more mistakes than usual for a president, whether he was a strong and decisive leader, and whether he understood the problems of people like the respondent. Respondents were polled on whether they approved or disapproved of the way President Clinton was handling the situations in North Korea, Haiti, Rwanda, and Bosnia, whether the United States' interests were at stake in these countries, and whether the United States should take action to restore democracy in Haiti and prevent North Korea from obtaining nuclear weapons. Questions involving health care asked whether President Clinton's plan was better than the current system, whether President Clinton or Congress should handle health care reform, whether the system should be fixed or changed completely and in what ways, and whether it was more important to guarantee health care for all Americans or to hold down the cost for working people. Opinions were solicited on Congress and how well it was doing its job, how much it accomplished in the past 18 months, what prevented it from accomplishing more, and whether the Democratic or Republican party could be better trusted to deal with the country's main problems. Respondents were asked whether they would likely vote for President Clinton or a Republican nominee in the 1996 presidential election, whether they would vote for a Republican or Democratic candidate in the upcoming United States House of Representatives election, whether they approved or disapproved of the way their own representative was doing his or her job, whether they would vote to re-elect him or her, whether they felt more inclined to vote for incumbents or challengers for public office, and whether they favored or opposed term limits for representatives. A series of questions addressed whether respondents considered themselves professional sports fans, whether they watched or planned to watch the world cup soccer games, and whether they thought they might ever be soccer fans. Other topics addressed whether respondents had ever heard of the religious right, whether they held favorable or unfavorable impressions of this group, whether they considered themselves a member of the religious right, whether homosexual relations should be legal or illegal, whether it was morally wrong, whether homosexuality was a choice, and whether homosexuals should have equal rights. Background variables include age, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, marital status, education, religion, religiosity, employment status, household income, social class, subjective size of community, labor union membership, political orientation, political party affiliation, whether the respondent was registered to vote, whether he or she voted in the 1992 presidential election, and if so, for whom (Democrat Bill Clinton, Republican George H.W. Bush, or Independent candidate Ross Perot).

The once-a-decade decennial census was conducted in April 2010 by the U.S. Census Bureau. This count of every resident in the United States was mandated by Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution and all households in the U.S. and individuals living in group quarters were required by law to respond to the 2010 Census questionnaire. The data collected by the decennial census determine the number of seats each state has in the U.S. House of Representatives and is also used to distribute billions in federal funds to local communities. The questionnaire consisted of a limited number of questions but allowed for the collection of information on the number of people in the household and their relationship to the householder, an individual's age, sex, race and Hispanic ethnicity, the number of housing units and whether those units are owner- or renter-occupied, or vacant. Results for sub-state geographic areas in New Mexico were released in a series of data products. These data come from Summary File 1 (SF-1). The geographic coverage for SF-1 includes the state, counties, places (both incorporated and unincorporated communities), tribal lands, school districts, census tracts, block groups and blocks, among others. The data in these particular RGIS Clearinghouse tables are for Union County and all census block groups in the county. There are two data tables in this file that show housing units by vacancy status (type of vacancy). Table DC10_01095 shows the number of vacant housing units by the following categories; total, for rent, rented but not yet occupied, for sale only, sold but not yet occupied, seasonal or recreational or occasional use, for migrant workers, and vacant for some other reason. Table DC10_01096 shows percent distribution of housing units for each of these same categories. These files, along with file-specific descriptions (in Word and text formats) are available in a single zip file.

The once-a-decade decennial census was conducted in April 2010 by the U.S. Census Bureau. This count of every resident in the United States was mandated by Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution and all households in the U.S. and individuals living in group quarters were required by law to respond to the 2010 Census questionnaire. The data collected by the decennial census determine the number of seats each state has in the U.S. House of Representatives and is also used to distribute billions in federal funds to local communities. The questionnaire consisted of a limited number of questions but allowed for the collection of information on the number of people in the household and their relationship to the householder, an individual's age, sex, race and Hispanic ethnicity, the number of housing units and whether those units are owner- or renter-occupied, or vacant. Results for sub-state geographic areas in New Mexico were released in a series of data products. These data come from Summary File 1 (SF-1). The geographic coverage for SF-1 includes the state, counties, places (both incorporated and unincorporated communities), tribal lands, school districts, census tracts, block groups and blocks, among others. The data in this particular RGIS Clearinghouse table is for Union County and all census blocks within the county. Table DC10_00514 shows counts of females by eighteen 5-year age groups. This file, along with file-specific descriptions (in Word and text formats) are available in a single zip file.

In 2023, Hawaii had the highest rate of union membership among its working population, with 24.1 percent being a union member. The least unionized state was South Carolina, with a rate of 2.3 percent.