Union Members Earn $1,404 a Week vs. $1,174: What the 2025 Union Data Shows
- The union membership rate was 10.0% in 2025, with 14.7 million members.
- Public-sector workers were unionized at 32.9%, more than five times the private-sector rate of 5.9%.
- Full-time union members had median weekly earnings of $1,404, compared with $1,174 for nonunion workers.
Union membership has been falling for decades, but unions still matter for pay in certain jobs and industries. Here are the key numbers from the latest annual BLS report (BLS Union Members, 2025).
The big picture
The union membership rate was 10.0% in 2025, little changed from the year before. In 1983, the first year with comparable data, it was 20.1%, with 17.7 million members. Counting workers covered by a union contract who aren’t members, 16.5 million workers (11.2%) were represented by a union in 2025.
Where unions are strongest
| Group | Union membership rate, 2025 |
|---|---|
| Local government | 37.8% |
| Education, training and library occupations | 32.5% |
| Protective service occupations | 31.3% |
| Utilities | 17.8% |
| Transportation and warehousing | 13.6% |
| Educational services | 13.4% |
The lowest rates were in finance (0.8%), insurance (1.2%), professional and technical services (1.3%), agriculture (1.6%) and food services and drinking places (1.8%).
The pay difference
Among full-time wage and salary workers, union members had median weekly earnings of $1,404, while nonunion workers had $1,174, so nonunion pay was 84% of union pay. BLS notes the comparison doesn’t control for differences in occupation, industry, age, firm size or region.
By state
Across states, union membership rates ranged from below 5% to nearly 25%. BLS cautions that 2025 state figures are based on relatively few observations and only allow broad characterizations, so treat any single state’s number carefully.
Public and private members are now about equal
The number of union members was similar in the public sector (7.3 million) and the private sector (7.4 million), even though public-sector workers are a much smaller share of the workforce. The public-sector rate rose 0.7 percentage point over the year; the private-sector rate was unchanged.
Other details
- Men had a higher rate (10.4%) than women (9.6%).
- Workers ages 45 to 54 had the highest rate (12.6%); ages 16 to 24 the lowest (4.7%).
- Full-time workers were unionized at 10.9%, part-time at 5.7%.
- BLS cautions that 2025 estimates are 11-month averages because October 2025 data weren’t collected during the federal government shutdown.
Published October 27, 2026. Sources are linked in the text.
Header image: original graphic by JobPayRaise.com.
Comments (1)
A related stat: public-sector workers also stay with their employer longer. In January 2026, median tenure was 5.6 years in the public sector versus 3.9 years in the private sector, and 7.0 years for federal employees. Source: BLS Employee Tenure in 2026.