Executive Summary/Key Findings

• Over six decades since the 1963 March on Washington, limited progress has been made toward the marchers’ demands for economic justice. However, evidence shows that Black workers, once largely excluded from the official US labor movement, have made strides toward securing wage and benefit premiums associated with union representation.
• After controlling for other factors, Black workers with union representation enjoy a 13.2 percent hourly wage premium relative to their peers without union representation. This amounts to an extra $3.73 per hour. 
• There is substantial geographic variability in the union wage premium, with Black workers in the Southeast and Plains regions realizing union wage premiums that are more than double those in the Mideast region.
• Even after adjusting for other characteristics, Black workers with union representation were more likely than nonunion Black workers to have employer-sponsored health insurance and retirement benefits. Union representation is associated with a 15.7 percent increase in employer-sponsored health insurance and a 53.7 percent increase in employer-sponsored retirement plans. 
• Black workers without a bachelor’s degree enjoy an especially high union wage premium, making 18.6 percent more than their nonunion peers even after controlling for other factors. This is also true for health and retirement benefits; after controlling for other factors, Black workers without a bachelor’s degree see a 24.6 percent increase in access to employer-sponsored health insurance coverage, and a 66.9 percent increase in access to employer-sponsored retirement plans.

Introduction

Next week marks the anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, a pivotal moment in the struggle for civil and economic rights. While this event is commonly remembered for its calls to end racial segregation, the marchers’ demands also encompassed economic justice, including fair compensation and the right to organize. Labor played a central role in the march, with unions providing key organizational support and many demands explicitly linking racial justice to workers’ rights. New findings underscore the continuing relevance of the marchers’ demands: Black workers derive substantial economic advantages from union representation, including higher wages and greater access to employer-sponsored health and retirement benefits compared to their non-union peers. These findings underscore the importance of collective bargaining in advancing the economic equity agenda marchers established decades ago.

As debates over racial and economic inequality persist, examining how unions continue to affect the livelihoods of Black workers provides a direct line of continuity between the March’s agenda and today’s struggles. Unions have enjoyed a surge in popularity in recent years, with public opinion on unions nearing record high approval levels. Meanwhile, the labor and social justice movements have had a complicated, yet deeply interconnected relationship throughout American history. As the nation reflects on that legacy, it is important to assess how unions continue to shape the economic position of Black workers today.

To that end, this report utilizes data from the Current Population Survey’s Outgoing Rotation Group and Annual Social and Economic Supplement from 2016 to 2024 to examine the current state of Black union representation and the positive impact of union representation on the wages and benefits of Black workers. We take an in-depth look at the demographic composition of Black union representation and the variation in union advantage across demographic subgroups of Black workers.

We find that Black workers continue to have higher unionization rates than other racial and ethnic groups, despite declines in Black unionization over the period studied. Across a wide range of demographic subgroups, union representation was associated with higher wages for Black workers relative to non-union peers. Union representation is also associated with greater access to both health insurance and retirement benefits. The union advantage persists even after controlling for other differences between union and nonunion workers. On average, Black union workers earn 13.2 percent more than their non-union counterparts, while being 17.2 percent and 54.8 percent more likely than their non-union counterparts to possess employer-covered health insurance and retirement, respectively.

Background

The March on Washington’s dual emphasis on racial justice and economic security provides an important historical anchor for contemporary scholarship on unions and racial equity. The march’s core demand for “jobs and freedom” underscored that racial justice could not be achieved without addressing injustice in the workplace. Yet the exclusions evident in 1963, particularly of Black women workers, also foreshadowed the uneven access to union power that subsequent research has documented. Later analyses, such as the work on racial equity by Bivens’ et al. (2023) and Bucknor’s (2016) study of Black union members, illustrate both the persistence of structural barriers and the transformative potential of unions in raising wages, securing benefits, and narrowing racial gaps. Similarly, research on public sector unions (Van Heuvelen et al. 2025, Kerrissey & Myers 2022) and wealth outcomes (Weller & Madland 2022) establishes unionization as a significant vehicle for economic inclusion of Black workers, even as union coverage has declined. Union representation is also associated with improved racial attitudes among white members (Frymer and Grumbach 2021), in keeping with the marchers’ vision of interracial solidarity in pursuit of economic justice.

Literature suggests that unions promote economic advancement for Black workers via several mechanisms. Through higher wages, increased benefits, and wealth-building opportunities, union membership markedly improves outcomes for Black workers and households, often narrowing gaps with white counterparts (Bivens et al. 2023, Bucknor 2016; Weller & Madland 2022; American Progress). Bucknor’s research at the Center for Economic and Policy Research specifically finds that the benefits of unionization are particularly pronounced for Black workers in low-wage occupations and those with lower levels of formal education.

Van Heuvelen et al. show that public-sector unionization plays a particularly significant role in reducing Black–white earnings disparities, although the magnitude of these gains varies across demographic groups and is sensitive to analytic controls. Kerrissey & Myers find an ‘intersectional union premium’ for Black women in the public sector. Frymer and Grumbach, meanwhile, demonstrate that union representation can shape social attitudes, reducing racial resentment among unionized white workers by fostering class solidarity in the workplace. 

Taken together, this body of research underscores the multifaceted ways unions can advance racial equity. Yet the extent to which Black workers can access these advantages depends not only on union density overall but also on the demographic and occupational profile of those they represent. Understanding who is unionized across dimensions such as age, gender, education, and sector is therefore critical to assessing both the reach and the limits of unions’ potential to deliver on the March on Washington’s promise of “jobs and freedom.”

Demographic Composition of Black Union Employees

The share of Black employees represented by a union has fallen sharply over the last several decades, from 25.3 percent in 1989 to 13.1 percent in 2024 (Figure 1). Black workers continue to have the highest representation rate across racial and ethnic groups, despite experiencing greater decline in union coverage than any other racial or ethnic group. 

Understanding these changes in union representation also requires looking beyond overall rates to the demographic patterns within them. Union jobs have never been evenly distributed within the Black workforce, and the composition of represented workers across gender, age, education, region, and sector sheds light on enduring disparities in access to the protections and benefits unions provide.

Figure 1

Despite its landmark status, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom has been criticized for chauvinism. Critics note that its labor demands centered male-dominated industries and neglected the struggles of domestic and household workers, who were disproportionately Black women. Women labor leaders like Pauli Murray and Anna Arnold Hedgeman were denied speaking roles at the March, despite Black women workers being central to the movement. Their exclusion echoed earlier dynamics in the Black labor movement, where women were often relegated to auxiliary roles rather than full membership in the union. Examples include the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, where women performed vital organizing, fundraising, and outreach work via the Ladies’ Auxiliary (initially known as the Women’s Economic Councils), yet remained formally separate from the main union body.

The gender composition of unionized Black employees appears to still reflect the legacy of that sexism, with Black men overrepresented in union jobs relative to Black women (Figure 2). Between 2016 and 2024, though men made up 46.4 percent of all Black employees, they accounted for 50.2 percent of employees with union representation.

Figure 2

Union-represented Black employees also skewed older than Black employees writ large in the years studied (Figure 3). Nearly 40 percent of all Black workers were under age 35, and over 60 percent were younger than 45. By contrast, just over a quarter of union-represented Black employees were younger than 35, and just over half were younger than 45. Union representation is somewhat higher among Black workers ages 35 to 44 compared with younger workers, and especially pronounced among those ages 45 to 64.

Figure 3

Black workers with union representation reported higher levels of formal education than their non-union peers (Figure 4). Among all Black employees, 31.6 percent had at least a bachelor’s degree, compared to 36.3 percent of those with union coverage. Similarly, 63.8 percent of all Black employees had some education beyond high school, rising to 68.6 percent among unionized Black employees.

Figure 4

Finally, there was substantial variation in Black workers’ level of union representation by region (Figure 5). Using regional definitions from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, union coverage was highest in the Mideast region — which includes Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania — at 23.3 percent, followed by the Far West region — which includes Alaska, California, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington — at 22 percent. Coverage was far lower in the southern half of the country, at just 7.0 percent in the Southeast region (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia) and 7.2 percent in the Southwest region (Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas).

Figure 5

Black workers have historically been overrepresented in the public sector, where civil service rules and union protections offered stronger and more consistent safeguards against discrimination than in the private sector. These protections reflected victories of the civil rights movement, encapsulated by the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which demanded equal access to employment and an end to racial discrimination in hiring. Between 2016 and 2024, 18.7 percent of Black employees worked in the public sector, compared to just 15.3 percent of all employees (Figure 6). Unionized jobs were even more concentrated in government: nearly half of union-represented workers overall (48.6 percent) and nearly half of union-represented Black workers (47.0 percent) were in the public sector. These dynamics  reflect persistent barriers to unionization in the private sector, where discrimination was often more entrenched. They also underscore the importance of the public sector as a source of stable, higher-quality jobs for Black workers. In 2025, however, the Trump administration has sought to reverse these gains by making the federal workforce more hostile to Black workers, and by attacking public sector unions that have been critical to advancing racial and economic justice.

Figure 6

Data and Methods

The analysis utilizes pooled public-use microdata on wage and salary earners from the Current Population Survey’s Outgoing Rotation Group (CPS ORG) and Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC) for 2016 through 2024. The wage advantage portion of the analysis utilizes merged CPS ORG data from the US Census with CPS ORG extracts from the Economic Policy Institute. The benefit coverage portion of the analysis uses harmonized CPS ORG and CPS ASEC extracts from IPUMS.

CPS ORG, also known as the Earner Study, utilizes a rotation pattern whereby households are included in the survey for four consecutive months, exit the survey for eight consecutive months, and then rotate back into the survey for another final four consecutive months. Workers in the survey are asked questions about their earnings and union representation when they rotate out in months four and eight.

CPS ASEC, also known as the March CPS, is an annual supplement to the CPS’ basic monthly labor force data. CPS ASEC includes information on work experience, income, noncash benefits, and poverty status, among other things. The reference period for questions regarding health insurance and retirement plan coverage in CPS ASEC is the previous calendar year.

Our analysis uses mutually exclusive categories for racial and ethnic groups. The category of Black workers encompasses all non-Hispanics who identified as Black, including those who also identified as other races. White includes those who identified exclusively as non-Hispanic white. Hispanic includes all respondents who indicated they were Hispanic, including those who identified as other races. Asian/ Pacific Islander refers to non-Hispanic Asians, Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders who did not also identify as Black. 

For regional analysis, this report uses the US Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) regional delineations rather than the US Census Bureau’s regional definitions. The BEA groupings more accurately reflect commonalities in state labor markets and policy environments that are particularly relevant for analyzing unionization patterns. For example, under Census categorization, Maryland is classified as part of the South (specifically South Atlantic), yet in terms of union density, political institutions, and labor law dynamics, it more closely resembles states like New York and New Jersey. State-level legislation and political economies influence Black workers’ access to the benefits of union representation, making regional comparisons along BEA lines more meaningful for this analysis.

Except in cases where a specific subgroup within one of these categories is the subject of the analysis, all regressions include adjustments for age, age squared, gender, education (less than high school, high school, some college, bachelor’s degree, and advanced), year, state, disability, COVID-19 pandemic status, US citizenship, part-time hours, public sector, and two-digit occupation and industry. Benefit premium regressions also include controls for marital status, to account for workers who may have alternate access to health insurance or retirement benefits via a spouse.

Regression-adjusted union wage premiums are calculated using ordinary least squares. Union wage premiums in percent are converted from log points by taking the antilog of the regression coefficients and subtracting one. Union wage premiums in dollars are calculated relative to mean non-union wages for a given group. Dollars for all years are adjusted for inflation using the CPI-U-RS. Imputed wages are excluded from the analysis to avoid the match bias noted by Bollinger and Hirsch (2006). Coverage regression results for subgroups are reported if they are significant at the one percent level with a sufficient sample size to perform the analysis. 

In 2023, the CPS introduced new wage rounding rules as a privacy protection measure. When these rounding rules were retroactively applied to other years in the sample, the difference in results was negligible; for the sake of consistency, the results discussed in this report reflect the application of such rules. Alongside the new rounding rules, the CPS also introduced new changes to its top-coding. This analysis adapts a set of adjustments developed by John Schmitt to create a consistent hourly wage series so that the adjustments reflect both the new top-coding rules and the new rounding rules. All wage data in this analysis reflect the application of said adjustments.

Employer-sponsored benefit coverage regressions are probits. Union health insurance and retirement coverage increases in percent terms are relative to the current coverage rates for non-union workers. Coverage regression results for subgroups are reported if they are significant at the one-percent level with a sufficient sample size to perform the analysis. Given sample size limitations, regional analysis is only performed for wage analyses and not for benefit analyses.

Health insurance coverage refers to those who receive health insurance from their employer. Those who reported employer-based health insurance under a policyholder outside their household were excluded from the denominator, in particular to account for those who are under 26 years old and may be covered under a parent’s plan.

Findings

Between 2016 and 2024, Black workers enjoyed significant union wage and benefit premiums, including higher mean hourly wages, more employer-sponsored health insurance, and higher rates of employer-sponsored retirement plan coverage (Figure 7). 

Figure 7

After controlling for other factors, Black workers with union representation saw a 13.2 percent hourly wage premium relative to their peers without union representation. This amounts to an extra $3.73 per hour.

Table 1 shows union coverage density and the regression-adjusted percent and dollar mean hourly earnings premiums for Black workers. The table includes this information for all employed Black adults and by gender, age group, bachelor’s degree, and sector. It also includes union premiums for Black workers before and after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results are only shown for subgroups with results significant at the one percent level and for which the sample size was sufficient to perform the analysis.

Table 1

Black workers without a bachelor’s degree enjoyed an especially high union wage premium, making 18.6 percent more than their nonunion peers even after controlling for other factors. Those with a bachelor’s degree or higher saw a lower union wage premium of 5 percent.

Union representation was associated with higher earnings for both Black men and Black women, although the union wage advantage was more pronounced for the former. Likewise, Black workers of all ages saw higher wages with union representation, but the effect was more pronounced among those under the age of 35 and those aged 55 to 64. 

Despite much higher union density, Black workers in the public sector experienced smaller wage premiums than their counterparts in the private sector. This may be because wage variation between unionized and non-unionized workers tends to be greater in private sector industries than in industries with higher levels of public employment.

The union wage premium for Black workers declined after the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to March 2020, Black employees experienced a union wage advantage of 13.9 percent; this declined to 12.5 percent in the years and months following the onset of the pandemic. However, the union wage premium for Black workers declined slightly less than the union wage premium for white workers (not shown in the table), which fell from 15.3 percent before the pandemic to 11.5 percent after COVID-19 became a pandemic.

Our analysis found a slightly higher union wage premium for white workers than Black workers, such that the pay gap between unionized Black and white workers was not narrower than the gap between nonunion Black and white workers. While Black workers derive a substantial pay premium for union representation, the Black-white wage gap does not necessarily compress as a result, suggesting that unions improve outcomes for Black workers without fully eliminating racial disparities in pay.

The union wage premium for Black workers varied substantially by region (Figure 8). At the low end, the premium was 7.8 percent in the Mideast region (Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania) and 10.7 percent in the Southwest region (Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas). In contrast, unionized Black workers in the Plains region (Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota) earned nearly 16.8 percent more than their nonunion peers, the highest premium in the country. Other regions with especially large union wage premiums included the Southeast (15.5 percent), Far West (15.4 percent), and Great Lakes (15.3 percent). The Rocky Mountain region (Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Utah, and Wyoming) also showed a strong premium of 14.9 percent, while New England (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont) was somewhat lower at 13.0 percent.

Figure 8

Even after adjusting for other characteristics, union representation was associated with a 15.7 percent increase in employer-sponsored health insurance and a 53.7 percent increase in employer-sponsored retirement plans. 

Table 2 shows union density, the regression-adjusted percentage point union premium, and the percent increase in employer-sponsored health insurance and retirement coverage for Black workers. The table includes this information for all employed adults and for those of prime working age (ages 25 to 54), as well as by gender, possession of a bachelor’s degree, and sector. Results are only shown for subgroups with results significant at the one percent level and for which the sample size was sufficient to perform the analysis. 

Table 2

The union benefits advantage for Black workers of prime working age (ages 25 to 54) is slightly lower than for Black workers overall. Union representation is associated with a 13.4 percent increase in employer-sponsored health insurance coverage within this group, and a 47.8 percent increase in employer-sponsored retirement coverage. 

The union benefits premium is also more pronounced for Black men than for Black women. Union representation corresponds with a 19.8 percent increase in employer-sponsored health insurance coverage for Black men, and a 13.4 percent increase for Black women. The dynamic persists for employer-sponsored retirement benefits, which increase by 60.2 percent and 48.4 percent for Black men and women respectively.

Union benefits premiums are substantially higher for Black workers without a bachelor’s degree. They include a 24.6 percent increase in access to employer-sponsored health insurance coverage and a 66.9 percent increase in access to employer-sponsored retirement plans. Results for workers with a bachelor’s degree were not statistically significant.

In the private sector, unionization was associated with a 17.7 percent increase in employer-sponsored health insurance coverage, and a 68.2 percent increase in employer-sponsored retirement coverage. In the public sector — where baseline benefit coverage was already higher — the union effect was somewhat smaller but still substantial, with a 10.5 percent increase in health coverage and a 25.4 percent increase in retirement plan coverage.

The value of union membership may also have grown during the COVID-19 pandemic, which the World Health Organization officially declared in March of 2020. Prior to COVID, unionized Black workers had a 13.9 percent advantage in health coverage and a 53.7 percent advantage in retirement coverage relative to their nonunion peers. Since the pandemic began, these gaps widened to 18.1 percent for health coverage and 56.4 percent for retirement coverage.

Discussion

Though we find a substantial union wage premium for Black workers during the period studied, this premium is smaller than that found in previous research, and smaller than the union wage premium for white workers. Previous work by Bivens et al. at the Economic Policy Institute, for example, found that Black workers experienced a larger wage premium than white workers, such that union representation narrowed the Black–white pay gap. One reason for this difference is the level of detail used in industry and occupation controls. Bivens et al. controlled for 13 broad industry categories and 10 broad occupation categories, while our analysis uses 2-digit classifications comprising 51 industries and 22 occupations. This greater specificity yields somewhat smaller estimated premiums but offers a complementary perspective by better isolating the effect of unionization itself from broader structural patterns of employment. While the most detailed approach would use hundreds of fine-grained industry and occupation codes, the mid-level industry and occupation detail used in this analysis strikes a balance: It reduces the risk that observed wage premiums simply reflect patterns of selection into higher-paying industries or occupations, while avoiding the pitfalls of over-controlling for channels through which unions raise wages and ensuring adequate statistical power. The overall benefits of union membership for Black workers remain clear, but the differences in results highlight the complex ways that race, union membership, industry, occupation, and wages may intersect, suggesting areas that warrant further research.

Our findings also contradict research showing that union representation compresses the pay gap between Black and white workers. Our results suggest that white workers derive a slightly larger pay benefit from union representation than Black workers, such that union representation does not narrow the pay gap between the two groups. This finding does not diminish the importance of unions for Black workers, but rather highlights the persistence of racial inequities that may extend beyond the scope of collective bargaining alone. Unions provide meaningful and measurable economic benefits, but other structural factors continue to shape racial pay gaps. In this context, unionization should be understood as a powerful but not singular tool for advancing racial justice, one that must be complemented by broader policies and organizing strategies to realize the aims of the 1963 marchers and generations of activists since.

To that end, the geographical variation in our results is unsurprising. Union density has long been lower in the Southeast, where organizers must contend with hostile state laws and especially militant employer resistance. The high union wage premium for Black workers in the Southeast is consistent with a pattern where unions deliver especially large pay boosts in regions with weaker labor protections and lower baseline wages. By contrast, in regions with stronger union traditions and higher wage floors—such as the Mideast—the relative premium appears smaller.

This uneven geography of union advantage has historical roots. In the years leading up to the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, southern Black service workers, including hospital and laundry workers, staged strikes and organizing drives that linked civil rights demands to workplace justice. That tradition carried forward into the 1968 Memphis sanitation strike, where Black workers marched under the banner ‘I Am a Man’ to demand dignity, fair pay, and union recognition, and where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated while supporting their struggle. Both the March and the Memphis strike underscored the inseparability of racial and economic justice. More recent data show that those demands remain unmet. Unions continue to improve wages for Black workers, but the size of those gains is still undermined by regional hostility to unions. More than 60 years later, unions remain a crucial mechanism for advancing an economic justice agenda for Black workers, but the degree of progress continues to depend heavily on where they live and work.

We also find union-associated health insurance and retirement premiums that are substantially lower than those in Bucknor’s 2016 report. Bucknor’s analysis drew on 2015 data, when the Affordable Care Act’s coverage expansions were newly in effect. In the years since, the wider availability of health coverage options — particularly through the ACA marketplaces and Medicaid expansion — may have reduced the relative pressure on unions to secure health benefits, especially for younger workers with the option to remain on a parent’s plan. Advantages in Employer-Sponsored Healthcare and Retirement Benefits. Bucknor’s analysis also did not include several of the controls we used, including disability and marital status. Her analysis was performed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, which our results suggest exerted a significant effect.

Though the extent of the union advantage for Black workers has dipped over time, our results suggest that union representation remains a powerful tool for improving the economic standing of this group, particularly among Black workers with less formal education. In a labor market rife with racial inequality, unions remain one of the most powerful means by which Black workers can close wage gaps, secure employer-provided healthcare, and build retirement security. These gains are not just economic but structural, providing the kind of stability that generations of policy neglect and discrimination have denied. Strengthening union rights is therefore not just a labor issue, but a racial justice imperative.

To build on these gains, policymakers should prioritize policies that make it easier for Black workers to organize and join unions. This includes passing the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act to protect workers from retaliation and employer interference, funding robust enforcement of the National Labor Relations Act, and repealing state and local laws — especially in the South — that suppress wages and weaken worker power. And especially given the Trump government’s recent encroachments, lawmakers must also move to safeguard organizing and collective bargaining rights for workers in the public sector, where Black workers are disproportionately represented. Finally, ensuring that federal contracts only go to employers who respect union rights and pay prevailing wages would help set a floor for equity and accountability across the US economy. Such contracts should also once again require rigorous and enforceable diversity, equity, and inclusion commitments to combat systemic discrimination and ensure a more level playing field. 

While not a silver bullet, unions provide a clear vehicle for advancing racial and economic justice by improving workplace standards for everyone, making the facilitation of greater union representation a worthy endeavor in the pursuit of a fairer and more equitable economy. This carries forward the unfinished agenda of the March on Washington, because the demand for ‘jobs and freedom’ remains as urgent today as it was in 1963.