Almost one of every five American workers is employed in the public sector – working in our schools, colleges, universities, police and fire departments, and providing many other vital public services.
Conservative governors, mayors, think tanks like the American Legislative Exchange Council and the Reason Foundation are promoting privatization as an answer to state and local fiscal troubles. Large corporations in waste, water, prison and other industries that want to take control of public services are spending millions on lobbyists across the nation to capture new business.
Government outsourcing hurts the middle class and increases economic inequality.
A new backgrounder brief, Six Reasons Why Government Outsourcing Hurts the Middle Class, describes how the public sector provides quality middle-class jobs, and details extensive research showing how privatization eliminates these good jobs and increases economic inequality.
Here’s the six reasons.
- Contracting out often ends up costing more and lowering service quality
- When governments contract out public work, many good jobs disappear – wages, benefits, and hours decrease.
- Contracting out creates hidden costs for government and taxpayers.
- Government outsourcing disproportionately impacts African American workers.
- Contracting out hurts families and communities
- Contracting out leads to greater economic inequality.
Privatization proponents claim that handing public services over to private contractors will save taxpayer money. The evidence shows otherwise. Contract costs often are higher than promised and turning middle class jobs into low wage jobs without benefits simply shifts costs to hospital emergency rooms and public income support programs.
You can download the full backgrounder here.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
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