RIP Barbara Ehrenreich: Exposed Inequality in "Nickel and Dimed," Opposed Health-Industrial Complex

We remember the author and political activist Barbara Ehrenreich, who has died at the age of 81 after a career exposing inequality and the struggles of regular people in the United States. In a brief interview, Democracy Now! co-host Juan Gonzalez recalls working with Ehrenreich as part of the Young Lords and says she was instrumental for the movement against the American health-industrial complex. She's really one of the towering figures of the radical and progressive movement in America, and it's a tremendous loss, not only to her family but to all who knew her and benefited from her work," he says. We also air part of a 2011 interview with Ehrenreich on Democracy Now! upon the re-release of her landmark book, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America." Jobs that don't pay enough to live on do not cure poverty. They condemn you, in fact, to a life of low-wage labor and extreme insecurity," she said.