Employee Ownership and Wealth Inequality: A Path to Reducing Wealth Concentration

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of an economy-wide shift to broad-based employee ownership on wealth concentration in the United States. Relying on government data, we show that if all private firms became 30% employee-owned, the wealth distribution would be profoundly altered. Those currently in the bottom 90% of the wealth distribution would see substantial gains, with many of these gains going to traditionally marginalized communities. Only the top 1% of wealth holders would see a significant decrease in their wealth, although the decline would still be only 14% of their net wealth, on average.