Report: Union Membership Benefits Workers in Every State

by James Parks, Feb 3, 2010

Joining a union would be good for workers in every state in the nation because union members receive better pay and benefits than nonunion workers, according to a new report.

“The Unions of the States,” released today by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), studied union membership rates, size of the union workforce and wage and benefit advantages for union workers in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Click here to read the report.

The report found union membership rates vary widely, from more than 25 percent of workers in New York and Hawaii to fewer than 5 percent in North Carolina and South Carolina. California has the most union members, with 2.6 million, and Wyoming the least, with just about 20,000.


But no matter what the size of the union workforce, the union difference is clear in every state. The report says that in a typical state, union members are likely to earn 15 percent more an hour, have a 19 percent likelihood of having employer-provided health insurance and are 24 percent more likely to have an employer-sponsored retirement plan.

Based on the federal government’s monthly Current Population Survey, the report provides a snapshot of union members in each state by race, gender, public-sector or private-sector employment and more.

The report clearly makes the point that protecting workers’ right to join a union—the reason for the Employee Free Choice Act—is important and would benefit the country:

These findings demonstrate that, across the states, workers who are able to bargain collectively earn more and are more likely to have benefits associated with good jobs. Taken together these data strongly suggest that better protection of workers’ right to unionize would have a substantial positive impact on the pay and benefits workers in every state.