Employee Owners More Pleased With Their Financial Situation

Data from the General Social Survey from the National Opinion Research Center show that 32.1% of employees with stock or stock options in their company say they are more satisfied with their financial condition, compared to 23.1% of those without company stock. More strikingly, 61.1% said their financial situation was getting better in 2002, compared to 44.6% of those without stock. That is particularly notable given that the survey was done in 2002, when the market was still way down. The differences do not depend on the form of employee ownership. The data are based on surveys of 1,242 working adults conducted in 2002. Joseph Blasi and Douglas Kruse of Rutgers and Richard Freeman of Harvard, all affiliated with the Shared Capitalism Project of the National Bureau of Economic Research, organized the questions and their analysis. The National Center for Employee Ownership was one of the sponsors of the survey questions, along with the Shared Capitalism Project, the Beyster Institute, the ESOP Association, and the Employee Ownership Foundation. The Shared Capitalism Project receives support from the Rockefeller and the Russell Sage Foundations. The larger GSS and NOS surveys, which involve hundreds of questions, were primarily funded by the National Science Foundation.