“Nickel & Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America”: Barbara Ehrenreich on the Job Crisis & Wealth Gap

Standard & Poor’s announced Friday it has downgraded the U.S. credit rating for the first time in history. The move by S&P, one of three leading credit rating agencies, came just days after Congress approved a $2.1 trillion deficit-reduction plan. "In some ways, that is in another world from most Americans and their day-to-day struggles. What is it going to mean to you if you have no job now?" says our guest, Barbara Ehrenreich, who has just published the 10th anniversary edition of her book "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America." In the book, Ehrenreich tells the story of life in low-wage America and tries to earn a living working as a waitress, hotel maid, nursing home aide and Wal-Mart associate. Ten years later, she compares the current situation of low-income U.S. workers to "third-world levels of poverty."

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/8/8/nickel_dimed_on_not_getting_by

Barbara Ehrenreich, bestselling author of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, which just had its 10th anniversary edition published. She is also the author of numerous other books, including Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermining America and Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream. She is a frequent contributor to Harper’s and The Nation and has also been a columnist at the New York Times and Time Magazine.