The Jobs Crisis: Poor Folk Are Making Their TV Comeback

Fourth in a series on how the economic crisis is affecting the Industry.

What with the usual assortment of doctors, lawyers, ad executives, jingle writers and police showing up on your TV set, you would hardly believe that more than 14 million Americans are out of work.

Finally, that tide seems to be shifting.

On Fox's "Raising Hope," the unabashedly downtrodden Chance family struggles with finances while rearing an infant borne out of a one-night stand.

CBS's new comedy "2 Broke Girls," about a down-and-out Brooklyn waitress and a newly impoverished former rich girl, became one of the first series this fall to receive a full-season order.

And Roseanne Barr, the queen of blue-collar TV, has sold a new sitcom, "Downwardly Mobile," about a family living in a trailer park, to NBC.