Barbara Ehrenreich: The Growing Clout of the Nouveau Poor
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The media have been pelting us with heart-wrenching stories about the neo-suffering of the nouveau poor, or at least the formerly super-rich among them. Foreclosures in Greenwich, Connecticut! A collapsing market for cosmetic surgery! … In one of the most pathetic tales of all, New Yorker Alexandra Penney relates how she lost her life savings to Bernie Madoff and is now faced with having to lay off her three-day-a-week maid, Yolanda. “I wear a classic clean white shirt every day of the week. I have about 40 white shirts. They make me feel fresh and ready to face whatever battles I may be fighting…” she wrote, but without Yolanda, “How am I going to iron those shirts so I can still feel like a poor civilized person?” – Ehrenreich in The Nation
This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 13th, 2009 at 8:51 AM and filed under Articles, Economics, Media. Follow comments here with the RSS 2.0 feed. Skip to the end and leave a response. Trackbacks are closed.
