Union Approval: Long, Winding Road

Tuesday, September 2, 2025

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The voice of the world in numbers

Sept. 2, 2025

Welcome to Front Page, Gallup's indispensable intelligence distilled into four charts that give leaders the insights they need to make their most important decisions.

1. Union Approval: Long, Winding Road

Line Chart: Americans' approval of labor unions, 1936-2025.

The Data: Sixty-eight percent of Americans approve of labor unions in 2025, matching recent post-pandemic highs and approaching levels of support last recorded in the 1960s.

The Trend: Gallup has tracked union approval since 1936, the year after the National Labor Relations Act became law. Union approval peaked in the 1950s at 75%, fell below 50% only once, in 2009, and has since gradually risen.

Donut Chart: Views on requiring labor union officers to swear they are not communists in 1949.

The Data (1949): Early in the Cold War era, 82% of Americans approved of requiring union leaders to swear they were not communists before bringing cases to the National Labor Relations Board.

In History: The poll was taken two years after the Taft-Hartley Act required union officers to sign a loyalty oath, reflecting postwar fears ahead of the McCarthy era.

More Labor Union Data

3. Drinking Rates Drop Across Demographics

Range Plot: Recent trend in percentage of U.S. adults who report they drink alcohol, by subgroup.

The Data: Fifty-four percent of U.S. adults say they drink alcohol, down eight percentage points from 62% in 2023. The decline has been broad-based, seen across gender, age and racial/ethnic groups.

Group Differences: Among these three subgroups, the drop has been steepest among women (down 11 points to 51%) and White adults (down 11 points to 56%). Young adults' drinking rate has fallen to 50%, down nine points in two years and now lower than both middle-aged (56%) and older adults (56%).

Split Bar Chart: Newsmaker net-favorable ratings, by party ID.

The Data: Pope Leo XIV is the only public figure in Gallup's latest polling viewed more favorably than unfavorably by all major party groups, with net-positive ratings among Democrats (+68), independents (+39) and Republicans (+33).

Party Differences: Republicans rate JD Vance and Donald Trump the highest (both +86), while Democrats give top marks to Bernie Sanders (+75) and Volodymyr Zelenskyy (+68). Independents view all Republican-leaning figures net-negatively and are more ambivalent toward most Democratic figures, offering only mildly positive ratings of Sanders and Zelenskyy.

Deeper Dive