Union Membership and Contract Coverage in the United States, 1983–1988

This paper presents union membership and contract coverage density figures, based on calculations from Current Population Survey tapes for the years 1983–88, for employed civilian workers classified by demographic and labor market characteristics, industry, occupation, state, and metropolitan area. The estimates are calculated using new Census category codes and large sample sizes for the years 1986–88. In 1988, economy-wide union membership was 16.6%, and contract coverage 18.8%, of the employed labor force. In the same year, membership and contract coverage densities for private sector workers were 12.6% and 13.8%, respectively, compared to 36.5% and 43.4% for public sector workers. Membership and contract coverage densities decreased throughout the 1983–88 period in the private sector, but remained stable in the public sector. All estimates presented here are available from the authors in machine-readable form.