Barbara Ehrenreich, the muckraking creator, activist and journalist who in such notable works as “Nickel and Dimed” and “Bait and Change” challenged standard serious about class, faith and the very thought of an American dream, has died at age 81.
Ehrenreich died Thursday morning in Alexandria, Virginia, in accordance with her son, the creator and journalist Ben Ehrenreich. She had lately suffered a stroke.
“She was, she made clear, able to go,” Ben Ehrenreich tweeted Friday. “She was by no means a lot for ideas and prayers, however you possibly can honor her reminiscence by loving each other, and by preventing like hell.”
Barbara Ehrenreich was a Montana native, raised in a union family the place household guidelines included “by no means cross a picket line and by no means vote Republican.”
A prolific creator who frequently turned out books and newspaper and journal articles, she was a longtime proponent of liberal causes from financial equality to abortion rights. For “Nickel and Dimed,” one in every of her greatest recognized books, she labored in minimal wage jobs so she might be taught firsthand the struggles of the working poor, whom she referred to as “the most important philanthropists of our society.”
“They neglect their very own youngsters in order that the youngsters of others shall be cared for; they stay in substandard housing in order that different properties shall be shiny and ideal; they endure privation in order that inflation shall be low and inventory costs excessive,” she wrote. “To be a member of the working poor is to be an nameless donor, a anonymous benefactor, to everybody.”
