Barbara Ehrenreich

Barbara Ehrenreich (1941 to 2022) was an American author, essayist and political activist who wrote on class, work and gender in the United States. Born Barbara Alexander in Butte, Montana, she studied physics and chemistry at Reed College, graduating in 1963, and took a doctorate in cellular immunology at Rockefeller University before turning to health research, activism and writing. In 1977, with her then husband John Ehrenreich, she coined the term professional-managerial class. Her best known book, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (2001), reports on her three-month experiment of living on a series of minimum-wage jobs. She wrote 21 books, was a prominent figure in the Democratic Socialists of America, founded the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, and received the Erasmus Prize. She died on 1 September 2022.