Employee Ownership and ESOPs: What We Know from Recent Research (2026)

Joseph Blasi

J. Robert Beyster Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations; Former Director, Rutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing

Douglas Kruse

J. Robert Beyster Distinguished Professor, Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations; Research Director, Rutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing

Employee share ownership has a long and important tradition in the US.

As of 2022, approximately 18% of employees, or about 25 million workers across our nation, have some form of ownership stake in the company where they work, and 8% of employees have employee stock options. Employees participating in ownership in the US do so through a variety of means, including employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), equity compensation programs, worker-owned cooperatives, and employee-owned trusts. About 11 million active employees participate in ESOPs, while another 4.2 million additional retired ESOP employees are still receiving ESOP benefits from their ownership. An estimated 14 million employees participate in different combinations of equity compensation plans, including grants of restricted stock, employee stock options, and employee stock purchase plans. Estimates show that approximately 10,000 workers are employed in between 900 and 1,000 worker-owned cooperatives, with a growing number of employees in Employee Ownership Trusts (EOTs).

In this short brief, we provide some updated statistics and analysis regarding workers’ involvement in employee share ownership plans and the wealth and job quality benefits those workers realize from their participation. ESOPs are the most common form of broad-based employee share ownership in the US, and, likely for that reason, there are more robust data related to ESOPs. For these reasons, this brief focuses primarily on workers who participate in ESOPs.