What is the impact of employee ownership on the individual worker, or worker groups?  Does employee ownership (through Employee Stock Ownership Plans or Cooperatives) have an impact?  Recent research on the impact of employee ownership and individual workers performed by the National Center for Employee Ownership identified that among the sampled workers workers who are employee-owners across all demographic groups (low income, workers of color, workers with small children, and all respondents) identified positive impact from employee ownership.  See Table 1 for a breakdown of the impact of employee ownership on wealth, income, and tenure.

Table 1:

Note 1: Relative to workers who are not employee-owners.

For example:

• Median household net wealth among respondents is 92% higher for employee-owners than for non-employee-owners. This disparity holds true for the great majority of subgroups analyzed, including single women, parents raising young children, non-college graduates, and workers of color.
• Employee-owners in this dataset have 33% higher median income from wages overall. This holds true at all wage levels, ranging from a difference of $3,160 in annual wages for the lowest-paid employee-owners to an extra $5,000 for higher-wage workers.
• Employee-owners are much more likely to have access to an array of benefits at work, including flexible work schedules, retirement plans, parental leave, and tuition reimbursement. For example, 23% of employee-owners have access to childcare benefits, compared to 5% of non-employee-owners.
• Employee-owners in this dataset have substantially more job stability than non-employee-owners: their median tenure with their current employer is 5.2 years, compared to 3.4 years for the non-employee-owners.
• In 2013, the median employee-owner had household income equal to 378% of the poverty line, compared with 293% of the poverty line for non-employee-owners [the larger the number the better]. Most of this difference emerged over a period of years—the two groups had nearly the same median income-to-poverty ratios in 1997.
• For families with children ages 0 to 8 in their household, the employee-ownership advantage translates into median household net worth nearly twice that of those without employee ownership, nearly one full year of increased job stability, and $10,000 more in annual wages.\
• Employee-owners of color in this data have 30% higher income from wages, 79% greater net household wealth, and median tenure in their current job 36% over non-employee-owners of color.

For more information see Employee Ownership and Economic Well-Being.