Barbara Ehrenreich, author, journalist and advocate

Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of many widely published books, articles, reviews and essays, as well as an advocate for issues such as economic justice and health care.

Her books include Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, where Ehrenreich joined minimum wage workers as a waitress, maid, and more to see how you do, or don’t survive in America on $6 to $7 an hour.  In Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream, Ehrenreich examines the weakening middle class through the white collar unemployed.

Ehrenreich brings a unique perspective on the challenges facing low-income and middle class workers in today’s economy, addressing social and political matters, economic justice, health care and more.  Through years of reporting and research, Ehrenreich’s perspective on challenges facing the working and middle class can be applied to the many issues facing conference attendees, including affordable workforce housing.  She brings economic insights as well as her personal experiences to an analysis of critical housing issues.

Ehrenreich holds a Ph.D. from Rockefeller University and has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including a Ford Foundation Award for Humanistic Perspectives on Contemporary Society, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a grant for research and writing from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

She has worked as a professor of essay writing at the University of California, Berkley, Graduate School of Journalism, and as a guest columnist at the New York Times.  She shared the National Magazine Award for Excellence in Reporting (1980) and has received honorary degrees from Reed College, the State University of New York at Old Westbury, the College of Wooster in Ohio, John Jay College, UMass-Lowell and La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia.

In 2006, Ehrenreich founded United Professionals, a nonprofit organization seeking a response to the “war on the middle class.”

Her book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America is required reading for many colleges and universities. 

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