Pushing Working Families into Poverty: Assessing the New Haven Plan to Privatize the Public Schools

The City of New Haven is considering outsourcing its public school custodial services to a private firm. Outsourcing would cut the cost of services in half, saving the city $8.1 million, or 19% percent of the deficit. But in this analysis of the impacts of the cuts, Jeannette Wicks-Lim finds that the cost of that savings would be severe: the family of a custodian who continues to work in the New Haven Public Schools under the proposed contract would simply no longer be able to make ends meet.