New Survey on Extent of Employee Ownership in U.S.

An online survey of 2,373 U.S. adults conducted by Harris Interactive between April 11 and 13, 2007 for the Wall Street Journal Online found that 13% of those surveyed said that their company provided stock as a benefit (presumably primarily though ESOPs or 401(k) plans), while 9% said they received stock options. The stock options number is almost precisely the same as the number reported in the 2006 General Social Survey (GSS). The number receiving company stock is slightly different. The GSS data report 20 million employees have company stock; the poll indicates that 18.8 million do, although the questions are not phrased exactly the same way.