January 22, 2020
January 22, 2020 (Union Membership Byte)
By Hayley Brown and Hye Jin Rho
CEPR’s annual Union Membership Byte gives an in-depth analysis of union membership by sector, gender, race, ethnicity, age, education, nativity, industry, occupation, and by state (including the District of Columbia). The decline in Black union membership stood out amid declines in overall unionization rates in both the private and public sectors. The overall union membership rate fell to 10.3 percent, dropping by 0.2 percentage points between 2018 and 2019. This represents a loss of 170,000 union jobs. The union membership rates for both private and public sector workers fell for two consecutive years. These reductions reflect a downward trend that has persisted over the last several decades in the US. Although Black workers remain the most heavily unionized racial group at 11.2 percent, they experienced the largest decline in membership in 2019, losing 215,000 members. In comparison, unionization rates for whites fell to 10.3 percent, Hispanics fell to 8.9 percent, while Asian unionization rates rose to 8.8 percent.
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