Update
Public Options for America Show a Way Forward
04. 23. 2025
Public options offer a bold, popular path to curb corporate power and make life more affordable for everyday American families.
Hard-working families across the country are struggling to make ends meet as the costs of basic goods and services like childcare, groceries, and housing skyrocket. CBS News polling finds that Americans want Trump to focus more on lowering prices instead of tariffs. Public trust in government is still near historic lows, with 78% of voters more concerned with delivering change that improves Americans’ lives. It’s clear that Americans are feeling the brunt of the ongoing affordability crisis, driven in part by concentrated corporate power running prices amok.
This precarity is top of mind for policymakers, journalists, and scholars searching for solutions to alleviate the economic pain that households are feeling—particularly after Americans expressed those frustrations at the voting booth. We’re in a moment where people are trying to ask: how do we deliver on the promise of the economy that actually works for all Americans? Leaders like Sen. Sanders and Rep. Ocasio-Cortez are pushing back on the concentration of wealth and power with economic populism. Thinkers like Ezra Klein, Jennifer Pahlka, and Derek Thompson encourage progressives to embrace ‘abundance’ and build by making government more effective. One way to prioritize both is public options, which empowers communities directly and checks corporate power, while also navigating the difficult parts of effective implementation. It’s instructive to look at all the examples of public options to see their potential to deliver on these promises.
Public options show what’s possible when governments respond to local communities’ needs and build real alternatives for their constituents, when we grapple with the imbalance of power in our economy, and focus on marketshaping solutions that constrain corporate power while building power for all Americans.
Public options are provided, authorized, or procured by the government; that can coexist with private options to create positive outcomes such as economic choice for families and resilience for communities. 67% of voters support public options for essential goods like prescription drugs, grocery stores, and banks that would compete with the private market as an alternative, low-cost choice for consumers. Public options like post offices and libraries have long been embraced throughout history to introduce greater choice and equal access in the marketplace.
Across the country, a growing movement for public options is actively trying to do the work of making things affordable again for hard-working families. KC Tenants is working with tenants in Kansas City who know that the housing market is broken and experimenting with novel forms of collective organizing to secure necessary repairs to their homes, affordable leases, and tenant protections, as they fight for pragmatic solutions like municipal-owned housing to introduce more stable, affordable choices for housing. We’re partnering with Community Change and Roosevelt Institute on a participatory research report exploring how to achieve universal public childcare that also lifts up childcare providers in California, New Mexico, Oregon, Minnesota, Michigan, and Ohio. Be A Hero is leading the charge in organizing constituencies to defend Medicare. And momentum for public grocery stores to eliminate food deserts is building everywhere from Illinois to New York City, where mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is running on a plan to build five municipal grocery stores.
At the same time, we can only get so far in building an economy that works for everyone without checks and balances to constrain concentrated corporate power. Even with public options in place to assert competitive pressure on corporations, we’ll need antitrust enforcement and consumer protection to create affordable pathways for families to access basic goods in their local communities. For instance, public options for grocery stores will be driven out of business if they can’t secure competitive prices for products to stock their shelves. As it stands, many independent grocers can’t compete with the national chains, which are able to secure lower prices, preferable terms, and exclusive offerings on products simply because of their size. Ultimately, smaller grocery operators can’t secure as many options at affordable, competitive prices, and often go out of business as a result, leaving communities without access to groceries.
The importance of tackling concentrated corporate power is also adamantly clear when it comes to ongoing fights for public options in the utilities sector. Many local groups like the Citizens Utility Board of Ohio and Coalition for Green Capital are tapping into funds and tax credits made available by the Inflation Reduction Act to supercharge community-owned utilities as part of the transition to a decarbonized, green economy. Yet public investment alone is insufficient for ensuring a future where we have access to local utility options at affordable rates. In Maine, for instance, utilities outspent local campaign group Pine Tree Power 40 to 1 to defeat a ballot referendum, even as an overwhelming 68% of nationwide voters support publicly-owned utilities.
States and localities can lead the way to building public goods so that everyday families and communities have what they need to thrive, not just survive. By introducing more competition into local markets, they disrupt entrenched monopoly power while also tackling the acute affordability crisis at its roots with a structural, marketshaping approach. Municipal broadband, for example, in Chattanooga, Tennessee has helped local residents realize over $2.69 billion in value over 10 years while offering some of the more affordable prices for internet access.
Every American—regardless of race, class, or background—deserves a good, decent, and affordable life. Public options are part of an inclusive economic agenda that paves the way for a future where all of us can thrive, and they show a way forward in these difficult economic times.