Editorial correction — September 20, 2026. Corrected the claim that unions survive almost entirely in government and the equation of membership decline with an identical loss of bargaining power; retained verified BLS figures.
In 1983, one in five U.S. wage and salary workers belonged to a union. In 2025, it was one in ten. That long-term change raises a serious question about who can negotiate with power at work.
Membership, carefully counted
BLS reports 10.0% union membership and 14.7 million members in 2025, compared with 20.1% and 17.7 million in 1983. The 2025 annual estimates exclude October because of the federal shutdown. Read the release, tables, and technical notes.
Membership rates were 32.9% in the public sector and 5.9% in the private sector. But the numbers of members were similar: 7.3 million public and 7.4 million private. The earlier claim that unions survive almost entirely in government confused a rate with a count.
What the measure leaves open
A lower membership share does not prove that bargaining power fell by exactly the same percentage. Union representation also includes some workers who are not members. The quality of a contract, its enforcement, and the choices available to a worker require examination beyond membership totals.
Likewise, raw earnings differences should not be treated as a clean causal estimate of what joining a union would do for any individual. BLS cautions that its broad comparison does not control for important differences between workers and jobs.
The moral argument: a credible voice
Our concern is whether a worker can raise a problem without being isolated. A meaningful voice needs a process: someone to hear the concern, a record of the response, and a way to challenge a decision. A promise that the door is always open is weaker than a procedure that still works when the disagreement is inconvenient.
Unions themselves should be accountable to the people they represent. The question is not whether an institution deserves loyalty merely because it exists. It is whether that institution helps ordinary workers exercise responsibility and make themselves heard. Declining membership makes that question more urgent, but it does not answer every part of it.