DSA at the national level has been going through a rough time. The current National Political Committee (NPC) has been hard at work preparing the budget for the next fiscal year. Unfortunately, this has been a much harder time than anyone could have expected. The NPC elected at our latest convention inherited a financial deficit of $1,054,490. This is due to a number of factors. Our last convention voted to fund a number of campaigns, such as giving more resources to locals in order to help elect DSA members to school boards, allowing YDSA to participate in dues sharing, and creating full-time paid political leadership positions like national co-chairs and NLC co-chairs. The previous NPC also hired 12 new staffers to help with the influx of members that joined in 2020 due to the Bernie campaign and the George Floyd uprising. This increase in spending, plus the loss of membership DSA has had since 2021, has caused our national deficit to become untenable. The current NPC has voted to slash many of the spending priorities I mentioned above, but even after this, the organization will be left with a deficit of over $500,000. This made the majority of the NPC propose cuts to the national organization’s staff. You may be hearing this and thinking there is nothing you can do to help the situation. But you can by signing up for Solidarity income-based dues! At our last convention, we passed a resolution titled “Give Our 1% for the 99%,” allowing members the option to give one percent of their yearly income to the national organization. Many chapters have been participating in Solidarity Dues drives to get as many members as possible to sign up for income-based dues. And we have had amazing success. In fact, our projected income was increased by $420,000! While our deficit is still large, we should do everything we can to lower it. This will allow us to fund as many campaigns as possible and hopefully lessen the number of staff we will have to lay off. You may be asking yourself, “I’d love to sign up for this, but I don’t know how!” Luckily, a member of DSA’s national editorial board created this helpful explainer on how to sign up! This link will take you to a post made to the national organization’s discussion board. Let’s all chip in our 1% for the 99% and build the socialist movement!
GET INVOLVED: Update your member dues to solidarity dues here. If you’re not a member of DSA yet, you can join now using the same link.