Public options are for everyone.
Public goods and services have the power to shape markets to be more equitable, inclusive, and competitive.
Latest Resources
The Impact of Direct File—by the Numbers
03. 11. 2024
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Building the Public Options Field
02. 13. 2024
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Public Options: Benefiting Communities by Increasing Access and Affordability of Essential Goods and Services
02. 07. 2024
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Antimonopoly in the Age of AI: A Conversation with Chris Hughes and Ganesh Sitaraman
10. 25. 2023
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Public Options Bring the Public Back Into Governance
09. 14. 2023
Visit resource page: Public Options Bring the Public Back Into GovernanceVision
In an economy that works for everyone, families can access vital necessities like food, energy, medicine, utilities, and healthcare. Public options restore this access and give economic choice and power back to families. Public options are goods and services provided, authorized, or procured by the government, coexisting with private options, and available to all. They are a critical tool for restoring fairness to our economy.
Challenge
Corporate consolidation has decreased choice in communities across the country. Too often, Americans can’t access vital necessities because self-interested companies have priced them out of reach, while governments often ignore the abuses or react too slowly, allowing a tiny sliver of corporate executives to distort free markets into monopolies. As a few corporations amass outsized influence, both the opportunities for new competitors to enter the market, and the ability for governments to protect citizens, are limited. In an attempt to balance the scales, our government leaders employ tools like regulation and litigation, instead of proactively crafting markets that work for everyone and take community needs into account.
The result? Corporate consolidation of grocery stores means families can’t access healthy foods; unregulated pharma pricing means seniors can’t afford insulin; and utilities companies’ singular focus on profit means that thousands of communities lack reliable energy and broadband access.
What We DoWhat We Do
Economic Security Project is creating momentum for public options to bring economic power back to communities. Building on Economic Security Project’s successful Antimonopoly Fund, our Public Options for America Fund will invest in civic groups, advocates, researchers, and communities who are pushing to make public options a reality. Through the fund and our complementary strategies, we will provide tools like feasibility research and technical assistance to make it easier for legislators to advance public options; we will invest in groups deploying public investment dollars available through new federal legislation; and we will popularize public options through strategic communications and storytelling.
CoalitionsCoalitions
As the movement for public options grows across the country and in numerous sectors, from health care to food to energy to broadband and more, our coalition spaces serve as a sounding board and learning community for one another, allowing good ideas and lessons to spread quickly. Each success has the potential to spur numerous replicas, each benefiting from the knowledge and expertise of its predecessors.
Our Team
Our Team
Harish I. Patel
Vice President, Build the Field
Dave Algoso
Managing Director, Build the Field
Becky Chao
Research Director, Build the Field
Hannah Gregor
Events Manager
Ameya Pawar
Senior Advisor