Report Exposes Outsourcing’s Damage

Inequality. You’re probably hearing this word everywhere, and rightly so. In the U.S. today, the top one percent own about 38 percent of the financial wealth in America. The bottom 60 percent own 2.3 percent. So what are some of the forces shrinking the middle class?

A new report by the National Employment Law Project (NELP) finds that outsourcing is one of the central factors driving down wages and working conditions in the post-recession economy. The practice allows public and private employers to evade labor laws, avoid payroll taxes, push costs onto workers and shirk their responsibility to provide basic benefits. It also leaves workers in an ambiguous legal status with no clear path to hold their employers accountable for abuses like stolen wages.

The report, “Who’s the Boss: Restoring Accountability for Labor Standards in Outsourced Work,” shows that outsourcing is a shell game for employers trying to avoid accountability, and it’s hurting workers and robbing the federal government of billions of dollars in revenue.

Government agencies and private employers have a choice — they can take the “low road” and increase economic inequality, or they can choose the “high road” that rebuilds and grows the American middle class.

Please take the time to read and share this report. It is a significant contribution to the debate on inequality.