Summary of Pdf on How Many Firms Are Good Candidates for Employee Ownership? Estimates from US Census Data on American Businesses

Grid Insight

140,000 ESOP Firms, 33 Million Workers

Quick Summary

Matt Mazewski's April 2025 research brief for the Rutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing estimates that, as of 2022, about 140,000 private firms with 50 or more employees and an owner age 55 or older were candidates for an ESOP buyout. Those firms employed about 33 million workers. Nearly 1.1 million smaller firms, with 5 to 49 employees, were candidates for a worker cooperative buyout and employed over 25 million workers.

Who Benefits From This Most

Owners can use Mazewski's 2022 Census cuts to test an ESOP at 50 or more employees, or a worker cooperative at 5 to 49. Advisors get a pool of about 140,000 ESOP firms with 33 million workers, and nearly 1.1 million cooperative firms with 25 million workers.

Intent: Overview
Exit Relevance: ESOP
Worker Coop