Preliminary Census of Worker Cooperatives in the United States

The purpose of this study is to get as current and accurate a count as possible of the worker cooperatives and democratic workplaces in the United States. Some previous counts were done in the 2000s, and most recently the University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives' study of the economic impact of cooperatives included worker cooperatives. But there were issues with all of these studies, and moreover none of them gathered data on longevity. This preliminary census gathers basic contact information, industry and sector information, and also attempts to gather data on size and longevity of existing cooperatives. This size/longevity data is important now for drawing some basic conclusions about the state of worker cooperatives, and it will be critical to assembling a longitudinal study in the future.