I picked up Bait and Switch when my son was assigned Nickel and Dimed for a summer reading assignment. I wasn’t surprised by what Barbara Ehrenreich learned about white-collar unemployment in America, since I went through a stretch of long-term unemployment in 2011-2012. Even though this book was published way back in 2004, I think the costs, stresses and failures Ehrenreich encounters have only ramped up in intensity after 2009.
As she did in Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich dropped herself into the trenches and created a false persona for Bait and Switch, as an unemployed PR person and event planner looking to get back into a corporate job after a few years of consulting work. She expected to receive an offer within a few months, then work in the position and find out how most people go through the process of finding and keeping a job.