Barbara Ehrenreich is 80 years old today.
Ehrenreich is an author and political activist who describes herself as "a myth buster by trade."
The New Yorker called her "a veteran muckraker." During the 1980s and early 1990s, she was a prominent figure in the Democratic Socialists of America.
Ehrenreich is a widely read and award-winning columnist and essayist and author of 21 books. Perhaps, she’s best known for her 2001 book, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.
A memoir of Ehrenreich's three-month experiment surviving on minimum wage as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing-home aide and Wal-Mart clerk, it was described by Newsweek magazine as "jarring" and "full of riveting grit,” and by The New Yorker as an "exposé" putting "human flesh on the bones of such abstractions as ‘living wage’ and ‘affordable housing.’”
Photo by Sigrid Estrada