Economic Power Project Education Series: How States Can Rein in Private Equity
Written by Ian Pfeiffer
In this month’s Economic Power Project education series briefing, SiX partnered with the Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP) to educate legislators and legislative staffers about the growing risks private equity poses to consumers, workers, and local businesses across the nation.
Private equity buyouts affect every industry, from healthcare to housing to childcare. By pooling money from large investors to buyout companies, the private equity business model monopolizes the market and profiteers by cutting corners, laying off workers, and price gouging consumers.
A watchdog organization, PESP was founded in 2017 to serve as a resource to those grappling with these impacts. Their critical work focuses on five key areas affected by private equity: climate & energy, workers & jobs, housing, healthcare, and detention & surveillance.
This briefing provided an overview of these private equity threats in states as well as legislative solutions to protect people and our planet. During the briefing, SiX and PESP also shared some essential resources that legislators, legislative staff, and advocates can use to defend against private equity threats:
- Presentation Slide Deck, Private Equity Stakeholder Project
- Private Equity Risk Index, Private Equity Stakeholder Project
- Manufactured Housing Tracker, Private Equity Stakeholder Project,
- Private Equity in Rural Healthcare, Private Equity Stakeholder Project
- Private Equity in Agriculture, Private Equity Stakeholder Project
- A New Culprit in the Housing Crisis: Rent-Setting Software Algorithms, American Economic Liberties Project
- Children Before Profits: Constraining Private Equity Profiteering to Advance Child Care as a Public Good, Open Markets Institute & National Women’s Law Center
(A small correction in the video, Chris Noble mentioned Nueterra selling their hospitals for $2 was a typo, but it turns out it wasn't. Demonstrating how outrageously private equity investors can act.)
SIX’s Economic Power Project:
SiX’s Economic Power Project is SiX's national economic justice initiative, organizing legislators committed to building economies that empower people and advance justice. We recognize that the concentration of corporate and billionaire power in the economy did not happen by accident nor is it the result of inevitable forces. That harmful concentration of economic and political power is a product of deliberate policy choices over decades. At SiX, we know another world is possible – where our economies center people, not corporate and billionaire profits. And that world starts in the states. Learn more and join here.