In the age of capitalist recessions and unstable economies, public and government services are routinely sold off and contracted out to private companies. In Manchester, England, the First Great Manchester Transportation Authority has now become a private enterprise that caters to a very public necessity: busing.

England has seen this type of transaction occur before with the privatization of the National Rail. This time, starting on March 1, fares for daily, weekly and monthly bus passes have once again been raised at the hands of new private ownership – demonstrating what many consider a stealth form of class warfare and a subtle shift toward austerity.

I had the opportunity to speak with several Mancunians about the recent change and how it is affecting their perspective on local governance and administration. One of them is Jasmine Fisher, a native Australian who possesses British citizenship. Fisher, who moved to Manchester to pursue a career in comedy, that she supports “alleviating some of the hardships suffered daily by the working class,” and that bus privatization targets those that who can least afford the higher costs.

“For starters, I don’t think the public transportation system should be privatized,” she said. “Raising the fares is just another thing that's going to add pressure to the working class and encourage them to take on more hours to pay for everything when really they should be raising the wages to match the increase of fares and other general living costs.

"Instead, the government are giving tax breaks to their rich friends and encouraging a society where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer,” Fisher added.

The privatization of the Manchester's bus service is only the latest sell-off of public services in the U.K. The British government contracts large portions of the National Health Service – a staple of socialized reform that has benefited U.K. citizens for more than half a century – to private corporations. Now, the once-revered NHS has become a patchwork operation and many Members of Parliament desire to see the institution summarily terminated.

In addition to the quiet advance on the privatized national healthcare network, a new initiative passed by Prime Minister David Cameron has shaken up struggling citizens in a different way. In March, Cameron approved new legislation calling for a reduction of benefits to citizens who miss JobFare appointments. In addition, residents who receive benefits in conjunction with JobFare are now required to have Internet access in lieu of attending appointments.

Yet for many, access to the Internet – for financial reasons and otherwise – is no sure thing. The government's justification for the initiative is “to assure benefits recipients have an efficient way to file applications for prospective employers.” So working people are not only forced to attend appointments that often require public transportation to get there – with raised bus fares on top of it all – but must also go online to guarantee receiving their benefits, of which has created the sense that people on the bottom of the economic ladder simply cannot win.

"They've made it harder for people to get out and about and get to a job interview – but to get a job interview in the first place, you are now required to have Internet access," said Benjamin Crisafulli, who is struggling to make ends meet. "If people are being sanctioned and not given money to afford internet access, or if their benefits are so miniscule that they cannot afford Internet access, how will they get the money that they are entitled to, and paid in to?”

To many, the rise in Manchester bus fares is seen as just another way the British government is targeting its working class citizens – thought it's a process happening all over. In New York, residents witnessed the sale of Nassau County bus service, from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to Veoila Transportation, further reinforcing what seems to be a global imperative.

But as the UK moves toward general elections in May, it has yet to be seen whether privatization of public services and sanctions of benefits to recipients will, in the end, play an important role in the debate.

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