A 2021 John Zogby Strategies survey – in partnership with ESCA – of mid- and lower-level employees at employee-owned private companies tells an encouraging story about the financial stability of S ESOP employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. Survey results found that employee owners reported significantly less financial adversity, more stable jobs, better housing security and consistent retirement savings than non-ESOP employees.
In the midst of a public health emergency that triggered a massive unemployment event, non-ESOP employees reported experiencing:
- Six times the rate of job losses or downsizing of employee owners;
- Financial insecurity at more than three times the rate of employee owners;
- Inability to pay down debt at more than twice the rate of employee owners.
Despite the pandemic economic downturn, twice as many ESOP workers as employees at non-ESOP companies expect to retire by the age of 60.
These findings confirm what employee owners have known to be true for decades, building on research that shows working for a private ESOP company better equips American workers to weather periods of economic uncertainty. Zogby Strategies notes in their findings that this data should compel policymakers to make the ESOP structure an option “for as many working Americans as possible,” giving more workers the opportunity to gain financial independence and build retirement savings through future public health and economic crises.