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Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (2001)

by Barbara Ehrenreich

Other authors: See the other authors section.

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
10,544202597 (3.74)230
Millions of Americans work full-time, year-round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, the author decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job, any job, can be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 an hour? To find out, she left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered. Moving from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, she worked as a waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing home aide, and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. She lived in trailer parks and crumbling residential motels. Very quickly, she discovered that no job is truly "unskilled," and that even the lowliest occupations require exhausting mental and muscular effort. She also learned that one job is not enough; you need at least two if you intend to live indoors. This work reveals low-rent America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity, a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate strategems for survival. Read it for the author's perspective and for a rare view of how "prosperity" looks from the bottom. You will never see anything, from a motel bathroom to a restaurant meal, quite the same way again. In her new afterword she explains why, ten years on in America this book is more relevant than ever.… (more)
  1. 50
    Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America by Linda Tirado (4leschats)
    4leschats: Both deal with the cyclical nature of poverty and its ability to trap people.
  2. 30
    Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell (WoodsieGirl)
    WoodsieGirl: To see how little things change...
  3. 30
    The Moral Underground: How Ordinary Americans Subvert an Unfair Economy by Lisa Dodson (zhejw)
    zhejw: In the 1990s, Barbara Ehrenreich goes "undercover" to discover how low wage workers (don't) get by. In the next decade, Lisa Dodson tells the stories of some such workers and their children, but focuses her time on those who supervise and serve them, subverting the system to help.… (more)
  4. 20
    On the Clock: What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane by Emily Guendelsberger (LAKobow)
  5. 10
    Working in the Shadows: A Year of Doing the Jobs (Most) Americans Won't Do by Gabriel Thompson (Euryale)
    Euryale: Thompson's work focuses more on the nature of low wage work and the ways immigrants are segregated in certain industries or departments, rather than on housing conditions or whether the wages are sufficient for survival.
  6. 10
    Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth by Sarah Smarsh (aspirit)
  7. 10
    Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream by Adam W. Shepard (amyblue)
  8. 00
    Selling Ben Cheever: Back to Square One in a Service Economy by Benjamin Cheever (nessreader)
    nessreader: Both about middle class writers adrift in the service economy and being miserable there.
  9. 00
    Hired: Six Months Undercover in Low-Wage Britain by James Bloodworth (nessreader)
  10. 00
    Mcquaig Linda : Canada'S Social Welfare by Linda McQuaig (bhowell)
  11. 11
    Dishwasher: One Man's Quest to Wash Dishes in All Fifty States by Pete Jordan (Othemts)
    Othemts: A pair of books that show the conditions for the worker in America's least desirable jobs.
  12. 03
    Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! by Robert T. Kiyosaki (readysetgo)
    readysetgo: An opposing view to the fatalistic tone of this book.
  13. 03
    Under the Overpass: A Journey of Faith on the Streets of America by Mike Yankoski (infiniteletters)
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» See also 230 mentions

English (199)  Italian (2)  All languages (201)
Showing 1-5 of 199 (next | show all)
This is a useful book for showing just how vapid some of the arguments against a social safety net are. That low-paying jobs are easy, that assistance that is available on paper is available in practice, that class mobility is a matter of work ethic, or that poverty reveals a flawed character, are notions that don't survive contact with reality.

I've seen lots of reviews saying this book is insulting because Ehrenreich had family and wealth to return to if her experiment didn't work out. They say that she doesn't truly understand what it's like to be poor, so she has nothing to offer. I think this criticism is unfair. Ehrenreich says many times that her experience is easier than her co-workers'. She relates conversations and testimony from genuinely poor people. And in her evaluation of the experiment she concludes that the working class are under-compensated and under-valued by society. If she'd concluded that that life is not so hard, and that thrift and diligence could get you through, I'd agree with the critics, but she doesn't, so it's hard to imagine that these reviewers were reading the same book as me. ( )
  NickEdkins | May 27, 2023 |
I had high hopes for this book. Wealth disparity is a topic I've been interested in for years. Ehrenreich does get into a little bit, but I felt like too much of the book was her privilege showing. There was far more about her than there needed to be. In fact, I'd say more than half of the story was about her and if she was going the Gonzo journalism route, she wasn't entertaining enough. ( )
  Sean191 | Mar 18, 2023 |
I have complex feelings about this book, but it does shed light on a huge societal problem that people shouldn't turn their eyes from. ( )
  CarolHicksCase | Mar 12, 2023 |
Too dated. Too much a character study by a journalist moonlighting as poor, rather than a more meaningful exploration. I much preferred Evicted, as the kind of rigorous social science I’m interested in. ( )
  jscape2000 | Feb 4, 2023 |
So many people say that if people only worked harder, they would be able to afford nice homes, adequate diets, decent schools for their children, and appropriate medical care. In 1999, author Barbara Ehrenreich, who had a PhD in biology, set out to see how true that was.
She traveled to three different cities–Key West, Florida, Portland, Maine, and Minneapolis, Minnesota–and planned to spend a month in each one. Her advance research said she would be able to find low paying jobs and affordable housing at each location and planned her budget with that in mind. She took a minimal amount of very basic clothing, rented cheap lodging and(with a credit card) cheap cars, and a little money to spend for deposits on housing and emergencies.
She found that life was a lot tougher than she anticipated. In most locations, it was almost impossible to find any housing in her price range (that being her salary) and what was available was extremely inadequate: poor maintenance, lack of a refrigerator or stove, etc., and even those sites were difficult to find. Often she ended up in a run-down motel or hotel that cost more than half of her salary. She also found she had to work two jobs just to afford that.
In Key West, she worked as a waitress and a hotel maid. The hours were long and their regulations stifling, In the restaurants, they were not allowed to talk to other servers or spend much time with their customers because it took them away from their other duties: setting tables, preparing dishes, cleaning up, etc. They were also unable to sit down while on duty and their breaks were few and short. They split their tips with the busboys and dishwashers. In both situations, patrons tended to ignore them unless they wanted something and then tended to look down on them.
In Maine, she worked as a member of a national housecleaning crew company and in the dining room at a nursing home for Alzheimer’s patients and being able to eat leftover food in the second. Salaries in both cases were very low and, in the second, the unit was understaffed so she had to do more work to meet the needs of the residents without extra compensation Two benefits were doughnuts and coffee before going to work in the first situation (the company took in more than the workers received).
In Minnesota, one of her jobs was at Wal-mart. After an intensive orientation, she found that she was placed in departments about which she had little knowledge. After having to work overtime without being reimbursed (the time sheets were altered to remove the hours), she tried to get the employees to unionize.
The conditions under which Ehrenriech lived were terrible but she had advantages many lf her co-workers at each location lacked: She did not have anyone else, e.g., child, ill partner or parent, depending on her income and presence and was in good physical condition.
NICKLE AND DIMED is an excellent portrait of what life is really like for low-income people trying to make it in our society. Hopefully, readers will be more conscious of what they are trying to do and appreciate how much they are accomplishing without as much support, financially and socially, as they deserve. ( )
  Judiex | Oct 24, 2022 |
Showing 1-5 of 199 (next | show all)
We have Barbara Ehrenreich to thank for bringing us the news of America's working poor so clearly and directly, and conveying with it a deep moral outrage and a finely textured sense of lives as lived.
 

» Add other authors (7 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Barbara Ehrenreichprimary authorall editionscalculated
Guglielmina, PierreTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Gustafsson, KerstinTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Piven, Frances Foxsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Tamminen, LeenaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Mostly out of laziness, I decide to start my low-wage life in the town nearest to where I actually live, Key West, Florida, which, with a population of about 25,000 is elbowing its way up to the status of a genuine city.
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Wikipedia in English (2)

Millions of Americans work full-time, year-round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, the author decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job, any job, can be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 an hour? To find out, she left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered. Moving from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, she worked as a waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing home aide, and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. She lived in trailer parks and crumbling residential motels. Very quickly, she discovered that no job is truly "unskilled," and that even the lowliest occupations require exhausting mental and muscular effort. She also learned that one job is not enough; you need at least two if you intend to live indoors. This work reveals low-rent America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity, a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate strategems for survival. Read it for the author's perspective and for a rare view of how "prosperity" looks from the bottom. You will never see anything, from a motel bathroom to a restaurant meal, quite the same way again. In her new afterword she explains why, ten years on in America this book is more relevant than ever.

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Very interesting, appalling narration and discussion of the writer's foray into living as does America's employed underclass, the working poor. Learning to do new tasks at each new poorly paid position, knowing no one, and unable to pay rent, eat, and take care of the bills is the daily norm for millions in this position and Ms. Ehrenreich tells it -- and shows it -- like it is.
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