The National Center for Employee Ownership has just released results from the first phase of an ongoing research project that compares the economic well-being of employee-owners early in their careers with that of other young workers. The findings, based on data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, are remarkable.
The dataset’s powerful sampling design allowed us to explore the impact of employee ownership on diverse groups of young workers ages 28 to 34.
Employee-owners have better outcomes across a wide variety of measures of economic well-being, and those differences apply to the respondents as a whole and to specific demographic groups.
As the National Longitudinal Surveys consist of the same people surveyed over time, the NCEO is able to revisit and update these results overtime and track how employee-owners continue to fare since our initial research report.
With support from the Employee Ownership Foundation, the latest results from 2015 have been analyzed and the results continue to reveal the positive trend explored in last year’s report.
Employee ownership—employees owning stock in the companies where they work—is a common but relatively unfamiliar aspect of the U.S. economy. The primary form of employee ownership in the United States is the employee stock ownership plan, or ESOP.
“When S&C Electric sold to us employees through an ESOP in 2007, I didn’t know what an ESOP was. Thanks to the ESOP I will be able to retire this year, a full two years ahead of schedule. More than just a financial benefit, S&C has really and truly treated me like a member of the family.”
“Recology has given me a great opportunity in life. I am a single mother of two beautiful girls, and being an owner at Recology has given me the tools I need to make them successful in life. People know that this is just not a company they work at, it’s a company they have ownership in.”