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• Dr. Ehrenreich's official site
• Excerpt from Bait and Switch
• Q & A with Dr. Ehrenreich

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Tavis: We continue our 'Road to Wealth' series tonight with award-winning journalist and author Barbara Ehrenreich. She has the unique distinction of having not one, but two books on the 'New York Times' bestseller list as we speak. Her 2001 book, 'Nickel and Dimed' is now a paperback bestseller. Her most recent appears on the 'Times' hardcover list. The book is called 'Bait and Switch: The Futile Pursuit of the American Dream.' She joins us tonight from Washington. Barbara Ehrenreich, nice to have you on the program.

Barbara Ehrenreich: Good to be with you, Tavis.

Tavis: How cool does it feel to have not one, but two books on the bestseller list at the same time?

Ehrenreich: It's pretty good, I guess. Too bad they're on such sad subjects, though, poverty, economic insecurity, misery.

Tavis: You know what? The subjects might be sad, but they are certainly subjects that need to be addressed in this country, certainly given the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Which is a wonderful segue, I think, Barbara, thank you very much, a wonderful segue to talk about this new book, which is really about the middle class. Your first book, 'Nickel and Dimed,' was about the lower economic classes. This book, again, 'Bait and Switch,' the new one, about the middle class. In light of, to my point, Hurricane Katrina, why should I care about having a conversation with you, respectfully, about the middle class these days?

Ehrenreich: Well, that's true. I do want to make one comment about the aftermath of Katrina. I couldn't believe it when we had so many people suddenly saying on TV, "Oh, my God, we didn't know there were all these poor people. Where'd they come from?' Now, who did they think was making up the hotel beds and serving the meals, and cooking and everything in New Orleans? You know - there was no understanding that this is the American working class in a service economy, poor people.

But the reason I got involved with the middle class subject is that I get a lot of letters from people who are in very low wage jobs, barely getting by, facing constant emergencies. You know, a broken-down car could really throw you off, things like that. And I began to notice that a lot of these people said they had once been in the middle class, had once had white collar jobs, until that layoff or downsizing or whatever they want to call it, right-sizing, re-orging or outsourcing had come along.

Tavis: Talk to me before we get to more about the particulars in the book and what you actually did - that is, to go undercover to get this book written. Talk to me about the plight of the middle class by the numbers. What's - the condition? What's the plight of the middle class these days in America?

Ehrenreich: Well, it's certainly better than being poor, but - it's about insecurity. The middle class is being buffeted as never before, wild swings in income. It's largely because there's so much churning out from the corporate world. People get in there, you know, they go through college, they maybe get their MBA, they think, "Oh, I've got it made.' And then there comes a day you go to work and you're told to clean out your desk in a half an hour. People are not prepared for that.

We just very recently learned that the average household credit card debt is $9,000. The average household has negative savings. So when something like that comes along, even in the middle class, there's nothing to fall back on. You lose your health insurance. You lose - of course, you have no income coming in. People do all kinds of things to get by. They may sell their house. They may auction their goods off on eBay. They may move back in with their elderly parents, whatever.

But in a lot of cases, they eventually have to swallow their pride, go down to Wal-Mart or to, you know, some other big box store, some other low-wage employer, and just take whatever they can get at $7.00 or $8.00 an hour.

Tavis: At the risk - Barbara, of sounding naive, let me ask this question, as to how this happens? What I mean by that is, how does the middle class get written off? If I go back to the campaign for the White House just months ago between Bush and Kerry, if I had a dime for every time I heard one of them make an appeal to the middle class, I'd be independently wealthy.

I do not recall Kerry and Bush talking ad nauseam about extreme poverty in America, but I heard references time and again to the middle class. So if the Republicans are concerned about the middle class, if the Democrats are concerned about the middle class, if the whole conversation for the White House centers around what we're gonna do to bolster the middle class, how can the middle class be caught in this situation?

Ehrenreich: Well, you know, you're making a good point. I think it's very frustrating that Democrats don't come right out and talk about poverty. But I'm trying to make the link here between the poor and the middle class, and say that, you know, they're not so far apart as they used to be. There's no security there in that middle class anymore.

That you may think, well, those - poor people, they're just not, you know, they made the wrong choices. They're not as intelligent, or - whatever the prejudice is. But the middle class person has to realize that he or she may be one year away, six months away from being in that same condition, working for $7.00, $8.00 an hour with no benefits to speak of.

Tavis: So tell me about the experience, which is, again, written about in the pages of the book 'Bait and Switch.' But just to topside it here, it's a fascinating undertaking that you engaged in to go undercover to get the story. Tell me more about what you had to do to get this story.

Ehrenreich: Well, it seemed pretty simple to me to start out with. I would just go undercover as a white collar job-seeker, looking for a corporate job, so I could find out what's involved in trying to get re-employed. How hard is it? I'm not putting myself up as a test case for the economy. I didn't think it would be too hard because, after all, you know, from the outside, you probably couldn't even tell the difference between a freelance writer, which I am, and an unemployed person.

You know, we kind of look the same. But I thought, you know, I would do everything. I would enter the world of the white collar unemployed. And what I found there was nothing like what I expected. It was, frankly, kind of surreal. You want to - you get a career coach right away. You want - some help, some orientation. They want to give you a personality test. Well, I'd had plenty of personality tests in the blue-collar world, and they're pretty easy. Like, they ask you like, "agree or disagree: It's easier to work when you're a little bit high?' Tricky question, that one.

Tavis: Yeah. Is that a trick question?

Ehrenreich: Yeah, that's a tricky one. But in the white-collar world, they say they really want to plumb the depths of your personality. I said, "What - does it matter? I told you what kind of job I want.' 'No, no, we gotta do this.' And they - one of the problems is all these personality tests, which I think a lot of viewers will be familiar with, like the Myers Briggs test, are nonsense. They have no scientific credibility. They have no predictive value.

And I don't know quite what that's about with the corporations and the career coaches all doing that. But anyway, they do that. I had a career coach, he tested me, he analyzed the results, and then he said, "You know, the downside of your personality, Barbara, is, you - should avoid occupations that involve writing. That's, you know, not for you.' So, you know, they just- anyway, he should have told me that a long time ago.

But, you know, it's one irrationality after another. Pretty soon, you learn, well, they don't really care about your personality, whatever that may mean anyway. What they want in the corporate world, you're told it over and over again, is you've got to be just one kind of personality. That is, positive, upbeat, - cheerful, perky, and obedient at all times. That's what they're looking for.

Tavis: What'd you learn about job fairs?

Ehrenreich: Job fairs did not work for me. You wait in long, long lines, and then you have a one-minute encounter with somebody who is deeply uninterested in you, and, you know, hand your resume over. And - you can follow up, but, in my experience, nothing came of it.

Tavis: Two funny stories you gotta share with me right quick, the 'Wizard of Oz' doll and the Elvis doll.

Ehrenreich: I can't explain this, Tavis. This was another part of the career coaching. When the guy brought out the 'Wizard of Oz' dolls and everything, I thought, "Oh, my, maybe the corporate world is just too complicated for me. Maybe I'll never understand it.' But, you know, a lot of things that go on that are not rational. I mean, they're not really looking for experience and skill. They are looking for these certain kinds of personalities that are very malleable, get along with anybody, you know, dress the right corporate way.

Tavis: But - what's that got to do with Elvis, though?

Ehrenreich: I can't explain that, Tavis. And if you can't understand it, I don't know how you got where you are in life.

Tavis: Yeah. (laughs)

Ehrenreich: But, you know, this whole way of picking people for jobs, this is how we got Michael D. Brown heading up FEMA. You know, a likeable guy, cheerful, I'm sure, but no skills, no experience.

Tavis: All right, so you did - land a job?

Ehrenreich: Yes, I did.

Tavis: AFLAC.

Ehrenreich: AFLAC, yes.

Tavis: AFLAC.

Ehrenreich: All right - the one with the annoying commercials, I got the job. But the funny thing about this job is it had no pay, and only commissions you can make. Then I asked, 'Well, what about health insurance?' And he said, "No, no, no, of course not.' So you'd be selling health insurance. You just wouldn't have health insurance. You know, this didn't look too good to me. Plus you have to put up about $2,000 to get your license to even enter into the business. So, you know, 13 million Americans do that kind of commission-only sales.

Tavis: I got 30 seconds here. Tell me, and, again, people can find it in 'Bait and Switch,' the new book. But tell me, what needs to be done here? What needs to happen to fix this - system run amuck?

Ehrenreich: Well, you know, one obvious thing, could we please have universal health insurance? It is ridiculous to have your health insurance attached to your job when your job isn't attached to you. We need, and this is for people, you know, all people, blue collar, white collar, we need much more solid unemployment compensation that lasts more than six months. That's not enough. And we need corporate accountability. You know, you can't keep coddling the corporations in the name of job creation, when they're actually destroying jobs.

Tavis: The new book by Barbara Ehrenreich is 'Bait and Switch: The futile pursuit of the American dream.' Barbara, thanks for coming on the program. Glad to have you.

Ehrenreich: Thank you.

Tavis: My pleasure. Up next, Dr. Price Cobbs. Stay with us.