Barbara Ehrenreich was born in Montana but, due to her father's job, lived in many other places throughout her childhood, such as Pittsburgh, New York, and LA. Throughout her college career Ms. Ehrenreich focused on the sciences, getting her Bachelors Degree in Chemistry and her PhD in molecular biology. After college, instead of pursuing a career in biology, Ms Ehrenreich discovered her true passion was in the realm of activism. She first worked for a non-profit organization in New York City, advocating for better health care for the poor, and eventually she focused her efforts on women's health rights. She enjoyed the investigative storytelling part of her activism, which led her to pursue a full time career as a writer. Today Ms. Ehrenreich is a journalist, author, and political activist residing in Virginia.
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This is an excerpt from the documentary The American Ruling Class. Barbara Ehrenreich, the author of Nickel and Dimed, takes a break from waiting tables to briefly explain to a recent Yale graduate what she's learned about trying to live on minimum wage.
Joan Holden, a playwright, was commissed to adapt Barbara Ehrenreich's book Nickel and Dimed for the stage in March 2002. In August of that same year, the play was first performed at the Intiman Theatre in Seattle, Washington. A month later the play was performed in Los Angeles and eventually made its way to New York in 2006. The play is still performed today by various city theatre troups and on college campuses across the country. Check out the links below to read reviews of the play or watch some clips of performances.
Watch the trailer for the 2009 stage production of Nickel and Dimed performed at the Generic Theatre in Norfolk, Virginia.
The impetus for this book is the welfare reform that took place in the 1990s. Before welfare reform, welfare money was distributed by a program called “Aid to Families with Dependent Children” (AFDC). However, during the 1980s and the 1990s, this program received much criticism for too freely distributing money to those who did not really need it. Some people believed that many welfare recipients were cheating the system by having more children to receive more money, or not working as hard as they could.
In 1996 President Bill Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act of 1996. This welfare reform bill changed many aspects of welfare. One important change was the time limit imposed on welfare recipients--someone could only collect welfare for five years. The AFDC was replaced by “Temporary Assistance for Needy Families” (TANF) and supplemented with the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which attempts to reduce or even eliminate taxes paid by low-income workers.
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Barbara Ehrenreich on MSNBC Morning Joe discusses issues related to the living wage and the White House's push for equal pay.
