Since the 2018 Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision, which ruled it unconstitutional to force public sector employees to pay union dues or be coerced into union membership, labor statistics show that unions have stalled and continue to lose ground. The new age of employment and self-employment has opened up different avenues and forms for working Americans, ones that encourage freedom and flexibility. A January 25 news release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics delivered the sobering facts on how little draw union membership has for the American worker.

The union membership rate—the percent of wage and salary workers who were members of unions—was 9.9 percent in 2024, little changed from the prior year, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The number of wage and salary workers belonging to unions, at 14.3 million, also showed little movement over the year. In 1983, the first year for which comparable data are available, the union membership rate was 20.1 percent and there were 17.7 million union members.