Barbara Ehrenreich: ‘Nickel and Dimed’ or ‘Bait and Switched’?

The famous author and social justice observer Barbara Ehrenreich came to Gustavus Adolphus College on April 24 to delight and challenge a mostly middle-class crowd of 300 optimistic undergrads and well-educated, aging liberals.

Though I took copious notes, originally I was not going to write on this event, as Ehrenreich more or less covered the same ground as her best-selling book, “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.” And who has not read “Nickel and Dimed”?

more insideWhat surprised me, however, is that Ehrenreich has since published two more books, “Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream” and, most recently, “Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy.” The latter is a departure from the previous two as it is not a social commentary and covers a more upbeat subject than either the working poor (“Nickel and Dimed”) or the middle-class unemployed (“Bait and Switch”). I’m sure she wrote it as therapy for having to deal with the subjects of the previous two tomes.

As everyone who has read “Nickel and Dimed” knows, Ehrenreich, in a meeting with her publisher sometime (I think) in 1998, suggested that someone should go undercover taking menial jobs and living wherever to see if one could actually keep body and soul together, then write about the experience. The publisher asked, “Why not you?”

Ehrenreich, who has a Ph.D. in microbiology and was already a successful author, took up the challenge, and the result became the funny yet bitingly poignant New York Times best seller.

“Bait and Switch” is the follow-up to “Nickel and Dimed,” yet in tone it’s quite different, which is perhaps why it’s been less successful. Whereas one’s reaction to “Nickel and Dimed” is like hitting your funny bone