Portside

The contracting trend has transformed corporate America into a two-tier economic system of company employees with secure jobs and good benefits and contracted workers with poor benefits who lack job security.

New study concludes that contracting out is undemocratic and leads to corruption as well as lowers wages and benefits.

Municipalities contact out an estimated 35 percent of services. The federal government has doubled the amount it spends on contracts since 2000, with most of the spending on services. Yet it is clear that contracting out public services has major negative consequences.