Report Shows Union Membership Rate Fell to Single Digits for the First Time

Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) published data showing that union membership nationwide slumped to 9.9 percent in 2024 – the lowest in recorded history since the agency began estimating comparable metrics in 1983.

The decrease to a single-digit union membership rate for the first time in recorded history is a far cry from the 20.1 percent recorded 40 years prior. Even in a period where the US population grew by 43 percent, the raw number of union members in the United States fell by 11 percent, from 17.7 million in 1983 to just 14.3 million today.

According to BLS, the private sector unionization rate has fallen to 5.9 percent while the public sector unionization rate ticked down to 32.2 percent, still more than five times higher than the private sector. This shrinking prevalence of unionization comes despite the past four years of the Biden administration using executive power to boost Big Labor, proclaiming themselves to be the “most pro-union administration in American history.”

When looking at age, the trend becomes starker. Workers aged 45 to 54 reported a union membership rate of 12.6 percent, nearly three times that of younger workers aged 16 to 24 who were at just 4.3 percent – the lowest of any age demographic surveyed.

Union rates continued to be highest in states like Hawaii (26.5 percent) and New York (20.6 percent). The lowest unionization rates were found in the same states as in the previous year: North Carolina (2.4 percent), South Dakota (2.7 percent), and South Carolina (2.8 percent).

The most unionized private-sector industry is transportation and utilities, with nearly 1 in 6 workers reporting union membership. While the construction industry fell to a record low unionization rate in 2024, it remained the second-most unionized industry in the private sector at 10.3 percent. Unionization in construction has been propped up in part by the Biden administration’s aggressive support of project labor agreements (PLAs) in federal construction projects. These agreements establish a prerequisite that workers participate in union-led collective bargaining agreements and agree to burdensome Big Labor demands before receiving government contracts. Fortunately, some of these PLAs were ruled illegal by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims last week.

This latest report from BLS is yet another sign that union bosses are out of touch with the workers they claim to represent. The ushering in of the Trump administration is a marked shift in this dynamic which ends the Biden administration’s coddling of Big Labor over the interests of American workers.