Capitalism for Everyone: Encouraging Companies to Adopt Employee Ownership Programs and Broad-Based Profit Sharing

Karla Walter, David Madland and Danielle Corley

Performance incentives that direct corporate profits to top executives have fueled dramatically unequal post-recession growth, with more than three-quarters of real income captured by the wealthiest 1 percent. This report from the Center for American Progress highlights how employee ownership, along with other profit sharing mechanisms, can help reverse this trend, as well as build community wealth and improve company performance. The authors encourage policymakers to expand loan guarantees and estate tax relief for firms converting to employee ownership. They also call for the creation of a federal “Office of Inclusive Capitalism” that would support a network of outreach and technical assistance centers modeled after employee ownership centers in Vermont and Ohio.

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