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Bait and Switch

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photoThe last time she was in the job market, activist and essayist Barbara Ehrenreich worked as a WalMart clerk, a janitor, and a low-wage food server. Based on that experience, she wrote "Nickel and Dimed," about the travails of low-wage America.

This time out, Ehrenreich has put herself in the middle-class, white-collar hot seat, spending almost a year in "job search" hell — that often-desperate level of purgatory reserved these days for well-educated, white-collar Americans who lose a job and suddenly risk losing their whole middle class life.

Ehrenreich put herself out there and stumbled, fumbled and failed. So do many others.

Hear a conversation with Barbara Ehrenreich about white collars and cold sweat.

Guests:

Barbara Ehrenreich, writer and author of numerous books including "Nickel and Dimed" and most recently, "Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream."

This program aired on September 12, 2005.

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