U.S. statistics prove unionized workers get higher wages

24 January 2014 the U.S. federal Bureau of Labor Statistics released its annual report on unionization statistics for 2013. The report gives an overview of union membership in United States in 2013.

The union membership rate in 2013 was 11.3 per cent, which is similar to 2012. The number of wage and salary workers belonging to unions was 14.5 million. In comparison, during the first year of data collection 1983 the rate was 20.1 per cent.

According to the report being a union member in U.S. has a financial advantage. In 2013 full-time wage and salary workers, union members had median usual weekly earnings of US$950, while those who were not union members had median weekly earnings of US$750. The details are in the comparison table of the Report called Median weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers by union affiliation and selected characteristics.

Other highlights based on 2013 data:

• Public-sector workers had a union membership rate (35.3 per cent) more than five times higher than that of private-sector workers (6.7 per cent).
• Workers in education, training, and library occupations and in protective service occupations had the highest unionization rate, at 35.3 percent for each occupation group.
• Men had a higher union membership rate (11.9 per cent) than women (10.5 per cent).
• Black workers were more likely to be union members than white, Asian, or Hispanic workers.
• Among states, New York continued to have the highest union membership rate (24.4 per cent), and North Carolina had the lowest rate (3.0 per cent).

The entire report is available on the link http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm