Union membership rate hits record high in 2023, but unions are picking up more workers

The decline in union membership occurred because the labor market added 2.7 million jobs in 2023, with non-union jobs growing faster than union jobs.

The data show that the decline in 2023 was driven by a decline in public sector union membership to 32.5%, with union density still around five times higher than in private industry. This happened when some states pushed to limit or ban the union rights of public employees. Union membership rates in the private sector held steady at 6%, because job gains in the private sector were so strong.

The share of Americans in unions reached a previous low in 2022 as a booming labor market emerging from the worst of the pandemic created more jobs.

Union membership rates, a widely used indicator of union strength, have continued to decline since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began collecting data in 1983. At their peak in the 1950s, unions accounted for more than 1 in 3 workers in the United States. .

The new data also complicates President Biden's self-proclaimed record as the nation's “most pro-union” president and focus on creating union jobs. His biggest accomplishments for the labor movement include approving trillions of dollars in spending on infrastructure, semiconductors, and climate packages that incentivize companies to hire union workers.

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The shrinking labor movement in the United States contrasts sharply with mounting evidence that Americans are on the side of labor unions. Support for unions has risen over the past decade, rising 67% last year, after hitting a record low during the Great Recession, according to Gallup polls. In fact, 2023 was one of the three biggest years for strikes since 1990, according to the Bloomberg Law database of work stoppages. A new wave of successful organizing has also achieved victories at previously non-unionized companies, such as Starbucks, Trader Joe's, Wells Fargo, and REI.

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Research has shown Union workers earn wages about 10 to 15 percent higher than non-union workers in similar positions.

This disconnect is largely a product of how difficult it is for American workers to join unions, said Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank in Washington, D.C. Unionization is often an arduous process that can take months or even years. When companies form, jobs begin as non-union positions. Workers can obtain union status through democratic elections that usually take place one workplace at a time.

Maintaining union membership rates requires “real activism.” [union] “Regulating just to keep up with the natural change in our labor market,” Shierholz said. “It's a long, continuous journey.”

In addition to the challenges, U.S. labor law is “heavily stacked against workers,” Shierholz added, with current penalties for illegal retaliation against workers hardly serving as a deterrent for employers looking to crush union activity. Recent efforts to secure the first union contracts at Amazon and Starbucks have faltered in the face of corporate opposition. Starbucks denies the National Labor Relations Board's finding that it refused to bargain in good faith.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said the decline in union membership numbers suggests unions are not as popular as the Biden administration portrays them to be, criticizing the White House for “putting[ting] Her thumb is firmly on the union scales above all others.

Union membership rates remained higher for men, at 10.5%, than for women, at 9.5%, although this gap has been narrowing over the years. The share of black workers in unions, at 11.8%, remained higher than the union membership rates of white workers, at 9.8%, and other racial groups.