Over the past four decades, private equity has become a powerful, and malignant, force in our daily lives. In our May+June 2022 issue, Mother Jones investigates the vulture capitalists chewing up and spitting out American businesses, the politicians enabling them, and the everyday people fighting back. 

The Smash-and-Grab Economy

Private equity billionaires are looting the country, leaving everyday Americans to clean up the mess—and fight for the scraps.

Michael Byers

Real Estate Predators Tried to Cash In on the Pandemic. Then Tenants Fought Back.

Kholood Eid

Everything Everywhere All at Once: How Private Equity Rules Your World

Sergio García Sánchez and Lola Moral

Biden and Trump Both Trashed Private Equity’s Favorite Tax Dodge. Surprise! It’s Still Here.

Jordan Awan

Congress’ Biggest Private Equity Investors

An Iowa Powerbroker Plans to Make a Windfall From Piping Ethanol Emissions

Jordan Awan

The Fight to Keep Their “Poor People’s Paradise” out of Private Equity’s Hands

Jordan Awan

Two Behemoths Control the Motorized Wheelchair Industry. Disabled Customers Pay the Price.

Jordan Awan

My Newspaper Was Gutted by Journalism’s Biggest Bogeyman

Janet Mac

I Started a Facebook Group for People Cut by PetSmart During Covid. It Didn’t End Well.

Janet Mac

I Work at a Furniture Store That Went to Hell Once Bain Capital Bought It

Janet Mac

A US Government Loophole Is Helping Putin’s Cronies Hide Their Cash

Mother Jones illustration; Getty

It Was Hard Enough to Get Treatment for Eating Disorders. Then Private Equity Took Over.

Mother Jones illustration; Getty

Elizabeth Warren’s Long, Thankless Fight Against Our Private Equity Overlords

Jack Hughes

Leon Black’s No Good, Very Bad Year

Jack Hughes

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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