Union Membership in the United States


Summary

On January 19, 2018, the Department of Labor (DOL) released its annual report on the status of union membership in the United States, showing that for calendar year 2017, the union membership rate was unchanged from 2016, holding at 10.7%. The actual number of employees who were union members in 2017 increased by 262,000 workers to 14.8 million. By comparison, in 1983, when the DOL first started reporting such data, the union membership rate was 20.1%, nearly double the 2017 rate, and total union membership was 17.7 million workers.