July 22, 1999 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Large variation in union membership by State

The rate of union membership varied greatly across the States in 1998. At the high end, the rate was nearly twice the national average, while at the low end, the membership rate was less than one-third of the national average.

[Chart data—TXT]

Among all employed nonagricultural wage-and-salary workers in the United States, 13.9 percent were union members in 1998. The State with the highest unionization rate was Hawaii, at 26.5 percent. The lowest membership rate—4.2 percent—occurred in North Carolina.

The 1998 union membership data are from the Current Population Survey. The membership data refer to workers in both the public and private sectors. Find more information on union membership by State in "Regional Trends," Monthly Labor Review, June 1999.