PIRG: Финансирование, критика и деятельность в интересах потребителей.

Organization

PIRGs on college campuses have historically been funded through the use of automatic billing with a portion of student activity fees in the form of a labor checkoff or in the form of automatically enrolled dues. Students may elect at some institutions to have the fees refunded to them or opt out, although many students are unaware that this is the case. At some institutions, opting out of the fee only lasts one academic term, requiring students who do not wish to be members and pay dues to have to opt out. In 1982, the PIRGs established the Fund for the Public Interest (commonly referred to as "the Fund") as its fundraising and canvassing arm. In 2014, students at Macalester College in Minnesota voted to end their relationship with MPIRG due to the group's revenue structure, which relied on MPIRG automatically receiving a cut of student activity fees. The Fund For the Public Interest has been subject to lawsuits and accusations of unfair and exploitative labor practices, and it has resisted unionization efforts by its canvassers. In 2016, U. S. PIRG joined conservative groups in opposing the Obama Administration's rules that expanded worker overtime pay, which resulted in criticism against the organization in the popular press. In 2022, the PIRG campus affiliate was shut down at the University of Connecticut after an effort by the local chapter to separate itself from the state and national organization failed to meet legal requirements.

Based on data from the 2018 Fiscal Year, Charity Navigator rated the U. S. PIRG one out of four stars for accountability and transparency (67.00 out of 100), and three out of four stars for financials (82.36 out of 100), for an overall rating of two out of four stars (73.54 out of 100).

U. S. PIRG's consumer protection work includes financial and product safety reforms. U. S. PIRG lobbied for the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an independent U. S. government agency which was founded as a result of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act after the Great Recession and the financial crisis of 2007–2008. U. S. PIRG helped win passage of the Credit CARD Act of 2009, protecting consumers from certain predatory practices by credit card companies. Product safety work includes warning consumers about potentially unsafe products in the marketplace, such as recalled baby products and food.

U. S. PIRG has called on major restaurant chains including McDonald's and KFC
to end the use of meat raised with antibiotics, a practice that contributes to antibiotic resistant bacteria in people. During the coronavirus pandemic, U. S. PIRG organized medical experts to speak about the U. S.'s response to the COVID 19 pandemic. The group of 150 sent a letter to political leaders urging them to shut down the country and start over with strategies to contain the surging coronavirus pandemic.

U. S. PIRG and individual state PIRGs have taken positions against highway expansion or new construction projects as wastefully expensive and unneeded, helping to stop projects such as the Illiana Expressway in Illinois.

U. S. PIRG actively lobbied for passage of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act in 2007, which reduced interest rates on student loans and increased funding for Pell Grants. It supported the expansion of open educational resources on campus and of campus food banks.