By Anca Voinea
The USA’s National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA-Clusa) has published its latest report on the sector, revealing that the country’s top 100 co-ops had a joint revenue of US$324bn in 2023.
The Co-op Impact report collects impact data and stories from close to 100 cross-sector co-ops, illustrating the diversity of the country’s 65,000 co-ops.
US co-ops are active in sectors including finance, with 4,6000 credit unions serving 142 million customers and employing more than one million people. These credit unions have doubled small business loan volume from 2010 to 2020. Around 52% of credit union CEOs are women, 10 times higher than the rate of women CEOs at banks.
Worker co-ops have become more popular in recent years, with the number of worker co-operatives tripling in the past decade. The USA is home to over 750 worker co-ops which generated over $483m in annual revenues in 2023. According to the report, these co-ops show high rates of ethnic, racial and gender diversity and have a 1:1.45 pay ratio between lowest and highest earning workers, compared to 1:344 in large US corporations.
Energy is another sector where co-ops have a strong presence. About 900 consumer-owned electric co-ops deliver power to 42 million US residents in 48 states, spanning 56% of the nation’s landmass and 42% of US electric distribution lines.
Another important co-op sector is agriculture, with two million American farmers members of more than 2,100 agriculture and retail purchasing co-ops. Farm co-ops generate about $297bn in total gross business volume each year, and employ nearly 200,000 people.
In retail, examples include REI, the largest US customer-owned retail co-op with over 24 million lifelong members, and National Co+op Grocers, which brings together 240 food co-ops supported by 1.3 million consumer-owners in 39 states with combined annual sales of more than $2.6bn. These food co-ops make an important contribution to their local economies. For every $1,000 spent at a food co-op, $1,604 is invested back into the local economy. They also pay employees about 7% more than grocery stores for the same work.
Mutual insurers also hold policies for 68% of homeowners, 56% of automobiles and 31% of business insurance sectors in the US.
Co-ops also exist in the housing sector, where they provide permanently affordable housing for more than 1.5 million Americans.
In addition to providing a snapshot of the collective socioeconomic impact of co-operatives, the report also includes case studies of best practices and highlights. NCBA-Clusa will also release a toolkit to accompany the report, which will elevate key data, highlight impactful stories and build engagement on social media.
Some of the co-ops have benefitted from the support of the National Cooperative Bank, which originated $1.1 billion in new loans serving cooperatives, their members and socially responsible organisations nationwide.
In terms of advocacy, the report highlights that NCBA-Clusa met with over 130 congressional and administration offices. Important wins over the past couple of years included preserving funding for the Rural Cooperative Development Grant (RCDG) Program, securing the introduction of Key Farm Bill Marker Bills to reauthorse programmes that impact co-operative development.
NCBA-Clusa is encouraging members and stakeholders to use the Co-op Impact report to maximise their public awareness and advocacy work during the UN International Year of Cooperatives.
-CoopNews
