Draft for Discussion — April 2026
This is an internal working framework. It is written for rigor, not for public consumption. Its purpose is to give the people building this agenda a shared theory of change, a common set of goals, and an honest accounting of what we know, what we don’t, and what we need to learn.
Every major proposal includes intended outcomes, indicators, measurement owners, and decision triggers — the conditions under which we accelerate, modify, or abandon a course of action. This is not a wish list. It is a plan that holds itself accountable.
The framework will be translated into different communications for different audiences: legislators, funders, coalition partners, and the public. This document is the source of truth behind all of them.
Minnesota faces a convergence of pressures that conventional policy approaches are struggling to answer simultaneously. Over 50,000 businesses owned by people over 55 will change hands in the next decade — and private equity is already at the table, buying up employers that anchor rural communities and extracting wealth that took generations to build. A structural deficit looms in the 2028-29 biennium — projected at $2.96 billion in the November 2025 MMB forecast, revised to a narrow positive balance in February 2026 but with MMB explicitly flagging that a significant structural imbalance and federal uncertainty remain. One-third of the state budget — roughly $45 billion — depends on federal transfers that are now uncertain.[^1] Over 97,000 households lack access to affordable housing. Rural communities face workforce shortages, business succession crises, and childcare deserts that are accelerating decline.
The standard responses — cut spending, raise taxes, lobby Washington — are politically brutal, structurally insufficient, or both. This framework proposes something different: an ownership economy agenda that addresses multiple strategic challenges simultaneously by expanding who owns productive assets in Minnesota.
The agenda has six points, each operating at a different level of the ownership economy ecosystem:
🏭 Worker ownership through ESOP succession redirects the boomer business transfer wave — 53,000 Minnesota businesses, 600,000 workers — from private equity extraction to worker wealth, while reducing turnover and anchoring rural employers. This is the most urgent item: the succession wave does not wait for political conditions to improve.
🤝 Business and agricultural cooperative capital closes the capital gap that prevents cooperative enterprise from reaching its potential in Minnesota, including next-generation agricultural cooperatives that keep more margin in farm communities and community-owned renewable energy projects.
🏠 Permanently affordable housing through Community Land Trusts, limited-equity housing cooperatives, and manufactured home park conversions adds the missing layer to Minnesota’s housing debate — ownership structures that stay affordable in perpetuity, not just for the first buyer.
🛒 Ownership-preference procurement redirects billions in existing state and university spending toward worker-owned and cooperative enterprises — no new appropriations, entirely within state authority, immune to federal cuts.
👶 Baby bonds seed a capital account for every Minnesota child, compounding for 18 years — a pathway to housing cooperative membership, business formation, and participation in the ownership economy for young adults who currently have no path to capital.
🏦 Public pension shareholder democracy redirects the governance power of $100 billion in public employee pension assets toward the long-term interests of Minnesota workers rather than short-term Wall Street extraction.
These six points are supported by a three-phase capital infrastructure arc. 🌱 Phase 1 expands the mandates of existing institutions — MnCIFA, DEED — to begin flowing capital immediately. 🏗️ Phase 2 establishes a dedicated Minnesota Ownership Economy Finance Authority. 🏛️ Phase 3 — the long-term capstone — creates a Minnesota Public Bank modeled on North Dakota’s, which has operated profitably since 1919 and recorded profits of $192.7 million in 2023 alone — its most recent record year at time of writing — and has transferred more than $585 million to the state general fund since 1919.
An honest fiscal accounting: The near-term cost of this agenda is modest — a capital gains exemption, technical assistance appropriations, and initial capitalization of loan funds totaling $50–100 million over several years. The long-term fiscal payoff is substantial but depends on the public bank reaching scale, which is a 7–15 year horizon. This is not a proposal that solves the 2028-29 deficit. It is a proposal that builds permanent fiscal infrastructure — a self-capitalizing revenue source that reduces dependence on both federal transfers and annual legislative appropriations. The near-term case rests on the urgency of the succession crisis, the cost-effectiveness of the housing models, and the fact that procurement preference costs nothing. The long-term case rests on the public bank.
A note on political realism: Some elements of this agenda are genuinely bipartisan. ESOP succession incentives, manufactured home park cooperative conversions, and procurement preference can attract Republican co-sponsors — and should. Other elements — the public bank, baby bonds, pension shareholder democracy — require DFL majorities to pass. The document is honest about this distinction throughout. The bipartisan items should be pursued immediately in any legislative configuration. The DFL-majority items require coalition building and political preparation that begins now but may take multiple sessions to reach legislative viability.
Minnesota has more ESOPs per capita than any other state. We built Securian, CHS, Land O’Lakes, Wings Financial, Affinity Plus, and Seward Co-op here. This is not a utopian project. It is an extension of what already exists — with the policy infrastructure, capital architecture, and political coalition to scale it.
The north star outcome: Within 15 years, Minnesota can demonstrate that the share of its economy operating under worker, cooperative, or mutual ownership has grown measurably; that the racial and geographic wealth gap has narrowed; that permanently affordable housing stock has expanded; and that the ownership economy infrastructure — anchored by a self-sustaining public bank — no longer depends on annual legislative appropriations or federal transfers to function.
The following sources underpin the key factual claims in this framework. For context-specific citations throughout the document, see inline links.
53,000 Minnesota businesses owned by people over 55, employing 600,000 workers with $24 billion in payroll Project Equity for MNCEO, The Silver Tsunami: Minnesota Business Succession Data Study (2020). Available at mnceo.org/the-silver-tsunami. Note: the underlying data study is from 2020; the succession window referenced in this framework runs through approximately 2030.
$2.96 billion structural deficit projected for the 2028-29 biennium Minnesota Management and Budget, November 2025 Budget and Economic Forecast (December 4, 2025). Available at mn.gov/mmb. Note: the February 2026 MMB forecast revised the 2028-29 projected balance to positive $377 million, though MMB explicitly flagged that “a significant structural imbalance remains” and noted substantial federal uncertainty. The structural challenge framing in this document reflects that ongoing uncertainty, not a single forecast snapshot.
97,500-household affordable housing shortage; 41 affordable and available homes per 100 extremely low-income renters National Low Income Housing Coalition / Minnesota Housing Partnership, The Gap: A Shortage of Affordable Homes — Minnesota Profile (2026). Available at mhponline.org/the-gap-a-shortage-of-affordable-homes.
Bank of North Dakota profits and general fund transfers Bank of North Dakota, 2023 Annual Report (2024): record profits of $192.7 million. Available at bnd.nd.gov. Cumulative transfers to the North Dakota general fund since 1945: more than $585 million. See also BND historical transfer record at thebndstory.nd.gov.
ESOP participants at retirement have meaningfully more assets than non-ESOP counterparts Two supporting sources: (1) Rutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing / W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Building the Assets of Low and Moderate Income Workers and their Families (2019) — low/moderate-income ESOP workers ages 60–64 have 10x the wealth of the typical American in that age group. Available at smlr.rutgers.edu. (2) National Center for Employee Ownership, S ESOP Participant Retirement Survey (2018) — S ESOP participants hold more than twice the average total retirement balance of Americans nationally. Available at nceo.org.
[^1] Federal transfers as share of Minnesota state budget This figure requires verification against the Minnesota ACFR (Annual Comprehensive Financial Report) or MMB budget documentation before wider distribution. The $45 billion / one-third estimate is consistent with typical federal match rates given Minnesota’s ~$66–68 billion biennial budget, but a specific sourced figure should replace this placeholder prior to publication.