Union Advantage

Union members earn better wages and benefits than workers who aren’t union members. On average, union workers’ wages are 27 percent higher than their nonunion counterparts.

Unionized workers are 60 percent more likely to have employer-provided pensions.

More than 79 percent of union workers have jobs that provide health insurance benefits, but less than half of nonunion workers do. Unions help employers create a more stable, productive workforce—where workers have a say in improving their jobs.

Unions help bring workers out of poverty and into the middle class. In fact, in states where workers don’t have union rights, workers’ incomes are lower.

 

Union workers participating in job-provided health insurance1  79%
Nonunion workers participating in job-provided health insurance 49%
Union workers participating in guaranteed (defined-benefit) pension plans 76%
Nonunion workers participating in guaranteed (defined-benefit) pension plans 16%
Union workers with paid sick leave 83%
Nonunion workers with paid sick leave 62%
Union workers’ median weekly earnings2 $970
Nonunion workers’ median weekly earnings $763
Young (ages 16–24) union workers’ median weekly earnings $602
Young (ages 16–24) nonunion workers’ median weekly earnings $470
Union women’s median weekly earnings $904
Nonunion women’s median weekly earnings $687
African American union workers’ median weekly earnings $810
African American nonunion workers’ median weekly earnings $611
Latino union workers’ median weekly earnings $811
Latino nonunion workers’ median weekly earnings $573
Asian American union workers’ median weekly earnings $979
Asian American nonunion workers’ median weekly earnings $948
1U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, National Compensation Survey:
Employee Benefits in the United States, March 2015.
2U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Union Members 2014, January 2015.

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