Union membership rose in 2025—including among federal workers

This morning, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released 2025 data on union membership. EPI experts will host a press call at 11 a.m. ET to provide their analysis on u nion coverage by sector, demographics, and state . Register here .

In 2025, 16.5 million workers in the United States were represented by a union -an increase of 463,000 from 2024 and the highest number of unionized workers in the U.S. in 16 years. The share of workers represented by a union grew slightly from 11.1% to 11.2%.

Unionization rose in both the private and public sectors. Strikingly, union density among federal workers rose from 29.9% to 31.1%, the largest single-year increase since 2011. This increase represented a gain of 40,000 unionized workers-notable given that federal government employment fell as the Trump administration slashed federal jobs.

"Unionization grew in 2025 despite the nation's broken system of labor law and the most anti-union president in history. And in response to the Trump administration's aggressive attacks on federal employees and their unions, federal workers increasingly turned to collective representation," said Heidi Shierholz, EPI president. "This increase is a testament to working people's resolve and the fact that unions are recognized as critical instruments for building a fair economy."

Other key trends analyzed by EPI include:

• Private-sector unionization rate grew but remained much lower than the public sector. Private-sector union coverage increased by 227,000 in 2025, pushing the unionization rate up from 6.7% to 6.8%. There were particularly large gains in health care and social assistance, retail trade, and educational services. In contrast, the traditionally blue-collar industries of mining, manufacturing, and transportation and utilities saw declines. Construction was the one heavily blue-collar sector to see gains. Meanwhile, the public sector gained 236,000 unionized workers, with union density rising from 35.7% to 36.4%.
• The South accounted for close to half (46%) of all net gains nationwide. The region added 214,000 unionized workers, compared with 249,000 in the rest of the country combined.
• Younger workers and people of color continued to drive the increase in unionization. Union coverage among workers under age 45 increased by 428,000, compared with an increase of 35,000 among workers age 45 and over. Unionization among people of color overall increased more (up 289,000) than among white non-Hispanic workers (up 174,000). This was driven by sizable increases in unionization among both Hispanic and Asian workers, but Black workers experienced a decline (though, at 12.7%, Black workers continued to have the highest unionization rate of all major racial and ethnic groups.)

Despite increases in 2025, EPI calculates-based on survey data-that more than 50 million nonunionized workers would join a union if they could. This is a testament to how easy it remains for employers to exploit our weak and outdated labor laws to stop union organizing, and how impressive it is that workers are organizing and winning even in a deeply hostile environment.