Millions of business owners are about to retire. They should sell to their employees

American workers feel their footing in the economy slipping. The stock market has hit high after high, while workers’ share of national income is at its lowest point in at least 75 years. Add to that an affordability crisis hitting families’ checkbooks and many businesses’ eager push to utilize artificial intelligence, and workers’ sentiments appear well-founded. Our current political polarization leaves few confident that we can agree on a way to offer workers a real stake in the prosperity our country creates. Employee ownership offers a promising path forward that is rooted in bipartisan ideals and designed to ensure economic prosperity is widely shared. We’ve spent the last six months talking to employee owners across the country at companies with just a few workers to those with several thousand, in industries ranging from manufacturing to home care. What employee-owned firms hold in common is that they draw ideas from the wisdom of their workers and share their profits, whether a worker is on the factory floor or in an office. The workers we spoke with told us that the ownership stake they have at work fosters a sense of commitment and motivation. A machine operator at a Vermont manufacturer who’d been with the company 37 years and was nearing retirement told us: “If you work for a boss, you feel like you’re making money just for him.” But as part of a company with an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, he explained, “you know you’re making money for your future and for yourself, not just somebody else.” Workers describe workplaces with shared goals and mutual accountability. Everyone knows: if everyone contributes their fair share of effort and profits increase it’s the workers who stand to directly benefit. An ownership stake makes a real difference in workers’ lives. Workers described how the extra money could help solidify their financial security in the present and help them re