Tripling US union membership would shift $1.2 trillion a year to workers

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More density would also narrow racial pay gaps, while a decline in density correlated to surges in wealth inequality

Tripling union membership in the US would lead to a 14.5% raise for the median US worker, shifting $1.2tn to workers annually and significantly narrowing racial wage gaps, according to a new report released Wednesday.

The report from the Economic Policy Institute notes that union membership rates across the workforce, also known as union density, was once three times as high as it is today. Union density in the 1950s was more than 30% before it started to decline in the 1960s. By the 1980s, union density dropped to 22.2% only to decline even further in recent decades, to 10% in 2025.

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