Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream

Barbara Ehrenreich's "Nickel and dimed" explored the lives of low-wage workers. Now, in "Bait and switch", she enters another hidden realm of the economy-the world of the white-collar unemployed. Armed with a plausible resume of a professional "in transition," she attempts to land a "middle class job" undergoing career coaching and personality testing, then begins trawling a series of EST-like "boot camps," job fairs, "networking events," and evangelical job-search "ministries." She is proselytized, scammed, lectured and, again and again, rejected. "Bait and switch" highlights the people who've done everything right-gotten college degrees, developed marketable skills, and built up impressive resumes-yet have become repeatedly vulnerable to financial disaster. Like the now classic "Nickel and dimed", "Bait and switch" is alternately hilarious and tragic, a searing expose of economic cruelty where we least expect it.… (more)