Our Issues & Priorities
Putting democracy to work, standing up to Wall Street, fighting corporate agriculture, creating a clean energy future—U.S. PIRG offers you the chance to help solve America’s problems.
BUILDING A MOVEMENT
Every year, our tax dollars pay for enough high-fructose corn syrup and other junk food additives to buy 2.8 billion Twinkies. U.S. PIRG fellows and campus organizers have led a nationwide campaign to educate citizens about how taxpayer dollars are going to junk food and build the momentum necessary to end these wasteful subsidies.
RESEARCH THAT GETS RESULTS
To compare fees and see whether the banks are complying with the Truth in Savings Act, U.S. PIRG researchers visited 392 bank branches in 21 states. We found that less than half were completely upfront about fees. Armed with these facts, fellows organized news conferences across the country to get the word out, earning coverage in more than 30 media outlets.
THE POWER OF THE YOUTH VOTE
With the Student PIRGs’ non-partisan New Voters Project, our organizers recruit and train students to run effective registration and mobilization drives on their campuses. We’ve helped register more than 700,000 young voters from Nevada to Massachusetts.
SUSTAINABLE U
The way we live our lives is putting our environment and public health at risk. Nearly all of our energy comes from sources that cause air pollution, mining and drilling pollution and contribute to global warming. But we have solutions to these problems and students on campuses around the country are getting them put into practice and building long term support for energy solutions. MORE
ZERO WASTE
In 2007, we threw out 570 billion pounds of waste. What's terrible is that much of that waste could have been recycled, broken down and reused or simply didn't need to be there in the first place. We're working on campuses across the country to get our campuses to reduce, reuse and recycle while building long-term support for zero waste. MORE
STOP SUBSIDIZING OBESITY
Our tax dollars should only go to things that serve the public good, yet we’re handing out taxpayer subsidies to big agribusinesses to help subsidize junk food. Huge, profitable corporations like Cargill and Monsanto are pocketing tens of billions in taxpayer dollars, and turning subsidized crops into junk food ingredients—including high fructose corn syrup. MORE
NEW VOTERS PROJECT
The Student PIRG's New Voters Project is a nonpartisan effort to help register young people and get them to the polls on Election Day. Democracy is strongest when citizens participate and for too long, young people haven’t been full participants. The best way to get political leaders to pay attention to young people and our issues is to demonstrate that we are a viable constituency that can be mobilized using tried and true techniques. MORE
AFFORDABLE TEXTBOOKS
Everyone knows that textbooks costs are out of control. The average student spends $900 per year, and prices are rising four times the rate of inflation! We're fighting to rein in costs by promoting cost-saving solutions on campus, while also tackling publishers' stranglehold on the market to change prices for good. MORE
STOP SUBSIDIZING OBESITY
Our tax dollars should only go to things that serve the public good, yet we’re handing out taxpayer subsidies to big agribusinesses to help subsidize junk food. Huge, profitable corporations like Cargill and Monsanto are pocketing tens of billions in taxpayer dollars, and turning subsidized crops into junk food ingredients—including high fructose corn syrup. MORE
CLOSE CORPORATE TAX LOOPHOLES
No company should be able to game the tax system to avoid paying what it legitimately owes. And, yet, establishing shell companies in offshore havens for the purpose of tax avoidance is becoming more the rule than the exception for at least 83 of the nation's top 100 publicly traded companies. MORE
MAKE HEALTH CARE WORK
Now the fight for health care reform has moved to the states — and so have the health care industry’s lobbyists. At stake is how we set up new insurance marketplaces across the country — the single biggest tool we have to clean up health care. MORE
REIN IN WALL STREET
Since winning federal Wall Street reform, we’ve been working to defend those reforms from the industry’s attempts to defang, defund or delay them, in particular the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is the centerpiece of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. MORE
PROTECT CONSUMERS
Toys should not be toxic or dangerous for children to play with. Our food should not make us sick. The terms for banking and credit accounts should be clear and easy to understand. MORE
Ready to apply?
If you are ready to dig in and start solving the problems that confront our country, consider a job with U.S. PIRG, the federation of state PIRGs.
Open Positions
You can solve real problems that affect the lives of thousands, sometimes millions of people. Find out more about our open positions.