Breaking Down the Latest Union Numbers

wNationally, union membership did not change from 2014 to 2015 – remaining at 11.1% of wage and salary workers. In Indiana, membership declined from 10.7% to 10% over that same time period.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently released updated union data. Five states had union membership below 5%: South Carolina (2.1%), North Carolina (3.0%), Utah (3.9%), Georgia (4.0%) and Texas (4.5%). Two states – New York (24.7%) and Hawaii (20.4%) – topped 20%. Nearly half of the 14.8 million union members lived in seven states: California (2.5 million), New York (2.0 million), Illinois (800,000), Pennsylvania (700,000) and Michigan, Ohio and New Jersey (600,000 each).

Other findings include:

  • Public-sector union rates (35.2%) were five times higher than that of private sector workers (6.7%).
  • Within the public sector, the union membership rate was highest for local government (41.3%). In the private sector, industries with high unionization rates included utilities (21.4%), transportation and warehousing (18.9%), educational services (13.7%), telecommunications (13.3%) and construction (13.2%).
  • By age, highest union membership rates were among older workers – 14.3% for ages 55 to 64 and 13.6% for ages 45 to 54.

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