United Professionals

Thanks to Reader EI for the tip off about Barbara Ehrenreich's new organization United Professionals. According to their mission statement:

UP is a nonprofit, nonpartisan membership organization for white collar workers, regardless of profession or employment status. We reach out to all unemployed, underemployed and anxiously employed workers -- people who bought the American dream that education and credentials could lead to a secure middle class life, but now find their lives disrupted by forces beyond their control.

The organization is responding to the challenges facing recent graduates like lack of affordable health care. Two in five recent college grads will spend at least part of their first year out of school without health care. 30% of 18-24 year olds lack health care with 25-34 year olds doing only slightly better. If this organization did nothing more than make a dent in that number it would go a long way to helping out young Americans.