In the Media
CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS: Public options are how we fight back against broken markets
12. 09. 2025
Public options give families choices where there are none today.
In almost two decades of organizing workers across the country, one thing I learned was always true: I couldn’t catch up with folks to talk about the challenges they faced on the job when it was payday. Not because they were heading to happy hour, but because they were rushing out the door to cash their checks.
This inconvenient errand after a long week of work is a symptom of a bigger issue. More than 700,000 Illinoisans are unbanked or underbanked, meaning they lack access to traditional banking services. Instead, they rely on check-cashing stores, payday lenders, and other predatory financial products. Hard working members of our communities end up paying at least 10% of their earnings in fees just to access their cash and pay their bills. For people who literally count every dollar to make ends meet, those fees add up. They could cover a trip to the grocery store, a tank of gas, or contribute to rising utility bills.
One way we can start to change this situation is through public banking. By offering fee-free debit accounts, a public bank would keep millions of dollars in workers’ pockets and offer a new path to financial security.
A public banking model could also give Illinois a powerful tool to finance public priorities from affordable housing to local infrastructure, community grocery stores and small businesses. Instead of relying solely on Wall Street banks that prioritize shareholder profit, a public bank can reinvest public dollars back into the very same communities that corporations have left behind. We can build our own nice things.
We know public banking can work because it already has. The fee-free banking program in Los Angeles has already helped 38,000 households access traditional banking and avoid the predatory marketplace. The Bank of North Dakota has provided small business loans and infrastructure financing to communities for more than a century, returning $1 billion in profit to the state.
Public banking is what’s called a “public option.” It’s a model that deserves exploration in markets that are broken or when corporations have failed to meet communities’ needs. Public options are government-supported services that exist alongside private markets to ensure everyone has affordable, high-quality access to essential goods and services.
Some public options are so standard to our way of life that you probably don’t realize you rely on them. Public libraries, insurance coverage, and even the post office are reliable, essential public options that shape our communities.
Public options offer us an alternative to relying solely on private industries. Increasingly, corporations have consolidated to grow their power, which means less competition and less incentive to keep costs down, fewer choices for working families on where to spend their money, and more gaps in communities where corporations choose not to do business at all. Public options are a way the government can help intervene in these broken markets and introduce an alternative that consumers and communities need — and can afford.
Recently, we’ve seen exciting new public options have emerged across the country to do just that. Chattanooga’s publicly run broadband network is delivering some of the fastest internet speeds in the nation at competitive prices. California’s CalRx program will provide insulin at just $11 a pen, a nearly 90% reduction that saves patients thousands of dollars per year. What’s more, it will force other manufacturers to bring their costs down to compete on price, and proves that a public drug option can be a much needed check on price-gouging pharmaceutical monopolies.
Some of these innovative efforts are happening closer to home. Our organization, Economic Security Illinois, has championed an effort to bring public option grocery stores to Illinois. Through funding from the Illinois Grocery Initiative, Venice, Ill., broke ground on the state’s first municipally owned grocery store this fall. For a small Metro East town that had no full-service grocery store for miles, the new store offers hope, represents a commitment to residents, and declares that access to food is not optional. This public option intervention means we’re bringing reliable grocery access to communities the private market has written off and – quite literally – left to starve.
In a moment when everything is unaffordable, and it feels like no one is fighting for us, public options offer a real way forward. They fill gaps where corporations see no profit, but where people still have real needs. They introduce competition where monopolies have grown comfortable. Most importantly, they give families choices where there are none today.