Chart of the Day: Union Membership by State

The B.L.S. reported this morning that for the first time since it started tracking union membership in 1983, the measure actually ticked higher, rising by 311,000 to 15.7 million in 2007.

Still, the portion of all workers that are in unions stayed pretty flat at 12.1 percent, up from 12.0 percent in 2006. And manufacturing jobs with union representation continued their decline. According to CEPR, "manufacturing workers are now less likely to be in a union than is the average U.S. worker."

Here is a (horribly designed) chart from the B.L.S. which breaks down the level of union membership by state. New York is the most unionized state with 25.2 percent of its workers in unions and North Carolina is the least unionized with 3.0 percent. Not surprisingly, the entire map looks a lot like the red state/blue state divide.

(larger version here)

Relatedly, here's a BusinessWeek chart which shows that wage and benefit costs for union workers grew slower in the first half of 2007 than for non-union employees:

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