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Stories by Barbara Ehrenreich

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.

Barbara Ehrenreich: Welcome to a Dying Industry, J-School Grads

Drop your sense of entitlement, Ehrenreich tells a graduating class of media makers, journalists are now "part of the working class."
Posted on Jun 4, 2009

Unemployed, and Not Getting a Job Anytime Soon? Why Not Build a Better World?

You may be poorer than you've ever been, but you have more free time to express anger and urgency.
Posted on May 11, 2009

If We Are in the Death Spiral of Capitalism, Can We Start Using the "S" Word?

The electroshock paddles of "stimulus" keep being applied, but the capitalist patient isn't waking up. Is it now safe to talk about socialism?
Posted on Mar 6, 2009

How a Man Was Thrown into Gitmo and Tortured for Clicking on My Article

America in the Bush years was so vicious and stupid that it managed to take my freedom of speech and turn it into someone else's living hell.
Posted on Feb 26, 2009

Corporate America, Ground Your Jets

The American taxpayer, reeling from the economic meltdown, doesn't feel like subsidizing lavish jets and bonuses any more.
Posted on Feb 21, 2009

The Nouveau Poor Have Reached Numbers Too Large to Ignore

As the poor and the formerly middle-class become the new American majority, will they finally have enough status to get their needs met?
Posted on Jan 13, 2009

How Positive Thinking Wrecked the Economy

Besides greed, another habit of mind should get its share of the blame: the delusional optimism of mainstream, all-American, positive thinking.
Posted on Sep 26, 2008

Flight Rage Incident Reveals the Dark Side of Osteen's 'Prosperity Gospel'

The wife of get-rich-now pastor Joel Osteen faces a civil trial that embodies the sense of entitlement of those who preach the gospel of prosperity.
Posted on Aug 13, 2008

Suicide Spreads as One Solution to the Debt Crisis

In a culture where credit rating is the key measure of self-worth, the increasing response to huge debts is "Just shoot me!"
Posted on Jul 29, 2008

Body Fat Holds The Key to Energy Independence

Obese America is literally sitting on vast energy reserves -- all we need to do is extract it.
Posted on Jun 24, 2008

This Land Is Their Land: How the Rich Confiscate Natural Beauty from the Public

In the era of the superrich, if a place is truly beautiful, ordinary people can't afford to be there.
Posted on Jun 17, 2008

Hillary Revealed That Women Can Be Nasty, Deceptive Candidates Too

Hillary Clinton smashed the myth of innate female moral superiority in the worst possible way -- by demonstrating female moral inferiority.
Posted on May 17, 2008

Truck Drivers Block Freeway Traffic Across the U.S. to Protest Soaring Fuel Prices

Faced with $4-per-gallon diesel fuel, truck drivers -- who deliver 70 percent of the nation's goods -- are hitting the brakes.
Posted on Apr 8, 2008

Hillary's Ties to Religious Fundamentalists

When it comes to unsavory religious affiliations, Hillary Clinton is a lot more vulnerable than Barack Obama.
Posted on Mar 20, 2008

The Fall of the American Consumer

We have been the world's designated shoppers, and, if we fall down on the job, we take the global economy with us.
Posted on Mar 12, 2008

Obama's Campaign: An Emotional Escape Hatch from the Bush Era

When Americans vote for "change," what they're really saying is, "Get us out of here!"
Posted on Feb 16, 2008

The Boom Was a Bust for Ordinary People

Our challenge isn't just to prop up stock prices but to rebuild an economy in which everyone shares the good times.
Posted on Feb 5, 2008

Clitoral Economics

Ben Bernanke may not use this imagery, but the immediate challenge is how best to get the economy throbbing again.
Posted on Jan 23, 2008

Experts Warn of Recession -- Duh, We're Living in One Already

Growth and productivity mean nothing when they are de-coupled from most people's lived experience: being squeezed.
Posted on Jan 10, 2008

What's So Great About Gated Communities?

When we live in gated communities, are we keeping things out or just fencing ourselves in?
Posted on Dec 5, 2007

America's Rich Citizens Can't Escape Our Poor Public Infrastructure

Can you spare a tear for the ultra-wealthy?
Posted on Nov 21, 2007

Writers Strike, Silence Falls

The plight of the writers doesn't invoke the same sympathies as more blue-collar workers, but anyone who's willing to stand up to greedy bosses deserves our support.
Posted on Nov 14, 2007

Are Re-Runs Really Such a Bad Thing?

Sure, a screenwriters' strike is not as emotionally compelling as a strike by janitors or farm-workers, but look at what we're losing.
Posted on Nov 14, 2007

Gap Kids: New Frontiers in Child Abuse

It's enough to make you vomit on your new denim jacket: The Gap has been caught using child slave labor in an Indian sweatshop.
Posted on Nov 2, 2007

The Clinton Campaign: Running on Ambien

The black and female candidates for president, especially the latter, are suffering from severe lack-of-personality disorders.
Posted on Oct 3, 2007

Why Does Everyone Bow Down to the Health Insurance Industry?

After facing down the Third Reich, the Japanese Empire, the U.S.S.R., Saddam Hussein, the United States has met an enemy it dares not confront -- the American private health insurance industry.
Posted on Sep 24, 2007

College Students, Welcome to a Lifetime of Debt!

Colleges and universities today are turning teenagers into full-fledged citizens of our economy by introducing them to a lifetime of debt.
Posted on Sep 11, 2007

It's Not Easy Being Ultra-Rich

This Labor Day lets not forget those among us who are the most fortunate.
Posted on Sep 3, 2007

Smashing Capitalism!

We may be witnessing the first time in history that the downtrodden manage to bring down an unfair economic system without going to the trouble of a revolution.
Posted on Aug 22, 2007

Children Deserve Veterinary Care Too

If Bush vetoes the SCHIP bill that would expand state health insurance coverage for children, the fallback demand should be: Open up pet health insurance to all American children now!
Posted on Aug 11, 2007

What Causes Cancer: Probably Not You

The perennial temptation to blame disease on sin or at least some grave moral failing just took another hit.
Posted on Aug 7, 2007

Health Care vs. the Profit Principle

Our health care system isn't designed to make people healthier: It is designed for extracting money from the vulnerable and putting it into the pockets of the rich.
Posted on Jul 17, 2007

The Rich Have Priced the Outdoors out of Everyone Else's Hands

As mansions increasingly eat up the coasts and hillsides, an old saying rings true: "If a place is truly beautiful, you can't afford to be there."
Posted on Jun 30, 2007

The Rich Are Making the Poor Poorer

A bloated overclass can drag down a society as surely as a swelling underclass. A great deal of the wealth at the top is built on the low-wage labor of the poor.
Posted on Jun 13, 2007

CEOs vs. Slaves

Recent findings shed new light on the increasingly unequal terrain of American society. The new "top" involves pay in the hundreds of millions, a private jet and a few acres of Nantucket. The new bottom is slavery.
Posted on May 31, 2007

Your Local News -- Dateline New Delhi

With a local news outlet in California recruiting reporters in India, no one can pretend any longer that we have a global monopoly on intellect and innovation.
Posted on May 16, 2007

Will Chimp Life Get Human Rights?

Hiasl, a 26-year old Austrian-based chimpanzee, is petitioning the courts for human status, and let me be the first to extend him a warm welcome to our species.
Posted on May 11, 2007

Higher Education Conformity

Is a college degree really a sign of competence? Or is it chiefly a signal to employers that you've mastered the ability to obey and conform?
Posted on May 2, 2007

Circuit City Slaughter: Seniority Means a Pink Slip

Not so long ago seniority was rewarded with higher pay and other perks. But that higher pay now carries a lethal risk, as Circuit City has just demonstrated.
Posted on Apr 10, 2007

Wal-Mart and Target Spy on Their Employees

With Target and Wal-Mart acting as though they are entitled to spy on, stalk and imprison their own employees, we are on the road to a full-scale workplace dictatorship.
Posted on Apr 6, 2007

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