US Union Membership Actually Held Steady in 2025
Overall union density in the US ticked up slightly last year to 10%. This figure doesn’t account for Donald Trump's executive order last March that commanded agencies to ignore contracts and bargaining rights for nearly a million federal workers.
In the private sector in 2025, the greatest union growth happened for construction and health care workers. (Michael Nagle / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
For four decades, a federal count of union members has been the annual physical exam for the labor movement. Did we grow or shrink, and where?
The tally just came out for 2025. At face value, the number looks better than expected, given a year of open warfare on us from CEOs who want to automate everything and a bloodthirsty federal government.
The feds asked fifteen thousand households per month whether they included a union member. Based on that survey, they estimated an additional 463,000 workers were represented by unions compared to 2024, roughly half of them in the public sector and half in the private sector.
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