American workers feel their footing in the economy slipping. The stock market has hit high after high, while workers’ share of national income is at its lowest point in at least 75 years. Add to that an affordability crisis hitting families’ checkbooks and many businesses’ eager push to utilize artificial intelligence, and workers’ sentiments appear well-founded. Our current political polarization leaves few confident that we can agree on a way to offer workers a real stake in the prosperity our country creates.
Employee ownership offers a promising path forward that is rooted in bipartisan ideals and designed to ensure economic prosperity is widely shared. We’ve spent the last six months talking to employee owners across the country at companies with just a few workers to those with several thousand, in industries ranging from manufacturing to home care. What employee-owned firms hold in common is that they draw ideas from the wisdom of their workers and share their profits, whether a worker is on the factory floor or in an office.
