Over 1,000 programs funded by AmeriCorps will close after the Trump administration cut nearly $400 million in program funding. Any slashing of services and resources provided to at-need communities are an attack on our lives. But the fact that so many programs will close because of the loss of AmeriCorps funding should make us look again at why social services in care, education, environmental stewardship, housing, and more, are provided through this program.
AmeriCorps workers are usually college graduates who work for a few years in community-serving programs, usually run by “non-profits” or non-governmental organizations (NGOs). These jobs are very low paid, with most workers making around $24,000/year or less. This puts most AmeriCorp workers near or below the poverty line. With rising costs of living and college debt looming, this very low pay makes “serving the community” a real sacrifice for most young people – and hardest of all for people who come from the communities most likely to need these services.
While we should be angry that communities will lose these badly needed services, the way they’ve been provided should also make us think. If over 1,000 NGO programs will now be closed, that’s over 1,000 programs that relied on paying workers wages they couldn’t survive on. AmeriCorps is a common pathway for young people into NGO work, but the low-pay doesn’t stop with that first job – the whole sector rests on paying less than public-sector jobs for hard work and long hours. AmeriCorps, for instance, is exempted from minimum-wage laws because it is classified as “public service” rather than employment. Many people would love to do work that helps others, but increasingly these low-paid NGO jobs are the only way to make an income doing that. This is because services that used to be done by public workers are more and more being done by NGOs instead. For example, instead of employing a well-trained, unionized high school counselor, schools can contract the job out to a non-profit that employs a less-qualified, younger, and cheaper worker to do the job without union protection. Services get worse, and workers get less secure and worse paid jobs.
Social workers sometimes call their jobs “janitorial work for capitalism.” What they mean is that capitalism creates misery and dysfunction all around it as it exploits workers and bleeds them for rent and bills. People need help meeting their basic needs and the pressure can destroy people’s mental health. NGOs are filled with well-meaning people being paid very little to provide services that try to pick up the pieces, but they have an impossible job when it’s capitalism that keeps shattering lives and families.
So while we should be angry about the lost services that will result from these cuts, don’t mourn AmeriCorps. Organize with other workers to fix the real problem: the capitalist system that’s crushing working people. NGOs are not the solution we need – we are.
