If there’s a war on the middle class, I’m enlisting to fight for it!
Wednesday, November 25th, 2009This is an excerpt from C. Cryn Johannsen’s blog. Click on link to read entire article.
After writing Bait and Switch (a book you should all buy, as well as these other other texts), author Barbara Ehrenreich explains, “ [it] inspired me to do something totally new . . . build an organization for unemployed, underemployed, and anxiously employed white collar workers. My research on the book showed me that college-educated workers are extremely vulnerable to downward mobility [my emphasis], and often end up in the kinds of low-wage jobs I had done for Nickel and Dimed. With some help from the Service Employees International Union, a group of people I met while on my book tour launched United Professionals in 2006, and we can be found at unitedprofessionals.org. We’re still small and struggling, but hoping to build a response to the ‘war on the middle class’ that is undermining so many lives.” (I’m proud to say that I am a volunteer for UP and am a legislative researcher for their website!).
I certainly understand how quickly one can find herself on a sudden and unplanned track of “downward mobility,” and I’m pretty sure that most of my readers understand exactly what Ehrenreich is talking about. Many of them are already there and are also part of the indentured educated class. That makes it even worse. (Edububble recently made a compelling argument about why it’s so bad to be a part of this new class).
