BLS Data Shows Slight Decline in Union Membership Rate
January 22, 2019
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the union membership rate was 10.5 percent in 2018, down by 0.2 percent from 2017. However, the number of wage and salary workers belonging to unions, at 14.7 million in 2018, changed little from 2017. The Economic Policy Institute underscored the data, observing that because employment of wage and salary workers grew by 1.6 percent between 2017 and 2018, the share of workers represented by a union declined by a more significant amount, from 11.9 percent to 11.7 percent.
