Barbara Ehrenreich's new book looks at the downside of looking on the bright side, which she says has undermined America
Monty Python - Always Look On The Bright Side of Life
Showing posts with label Barbara Ehrenreich. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barbara Ehrenreich. Show all posts
Monday, August 8, 2011
“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."
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.
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.
Bait and Switch - Barbara Ehrenreich
In "Bait and Switch, Barbara Ehrenreich goes back undercover to explore another hidden realm of the economy: the shadowy world of the white-collar unemployed. Armed with the plausible resume of a professional "in transition," she attempts to land a "middle-class" job. She submits to career coaching, personality testing, and EST-like boot camps, and attends job fairs, networking events, and evangelical job-search ministries. She is proselytized, scammed, lectured, and - again and again - rejected.
"Bait and Switch" highlights the people who have done everything right - gotten college degrees, developed marketable skills, and built up impressive resumes - yet have become repeatedly vulnerable to financial disaster. There are few social supports for these newly disposable workers, Ehrenreich discovers, and little security even for those who have jobs. Worst of all, there is no honest reckoning with the inevitable consequences of the harsh new economy; rather, the jobless are persuaded that they have only themselves to blame. - Books Inc.
Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of thirteen books, including the New York Times bestseller Nickel and Dimed. A frequent contributor to the New York Times, Harpers, and the Progressive, she is a contributing writer to Time magazine. She lives in Florida.
Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World by Barbara Ehrenreich
Jenni Murray salutes a long-overdue demolition of the suggestion that positive thinking is the answer to all our problems
Did Positive Thinking Wreck the Economy?
Acclaimed journalist, author and political activist Barbara Ehrenreich explores the darker side of positive thinking.
Did Positive Thinking Wreck the Economy?
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