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

A nice piece of writing, but I suppose I expected more. Barbara Ehrenreich, a woman with a Ph.D in Biology decides to go and write about the Working Poor in America. She goes and gets entry level jobs in three different states with caveats. She tries to get homes that are acceptably classed, but not too badly. She doesn't feel like starving, and some other things. Like she has a bank account and savings but only uses it in dire circumstances.

So she starts in Florida, the place near where she lives, goes to Maine, and then to Minnesota. She does many jobs but is surprised that though it is supposed to be 'unskilled' labor, a lot of the jobs require concentration and learning things. Even back then she acknowledged the wage gap, and figured that people would eventually go for living wages. So it is interesting in being foresighted, but it feels rather hollow to me.

So in all, the book was okay but I didn't like it as much as I though I would. At least it is short though. I mean, there's only so much you can go and write about a minimum wage job. Mostly it's about the relationships she makes and stuff like that. In the end this is only a project, so it's like a short glance at something that people live every day. ( )

Your library, In Process

not a great book. very hypocritical. easy read and interesting insights into being a house cleaner, server, and walmart employee (this part i thought was the most interesting). but she goes off about drug users/addicts and then later on goes off about how she can't find work because she can't pass a drug test. she goes into minute details of food/homeware costs, yet never mentions spending $50 for a bag of weed!

interesting figure - "In 1990, the federal government spent $11.7 million to test 29,000 federal employees. Since only 153 tested positive, the cost of detecting a single drug user was $77,000." ( )

Way back in 1998, author Ehrenreich decided to go and try and live like the lower class did. Allowing herself a car and a $1000 in startup money, she went out to land a working class job- waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing home aide, Walmart associate- and survive on the wages. She discovered how wages didn’t cover rents, or much food, or any way to relax. Most people were working two or even three jobs just to survive. Most often, there was no affordable housing near any source of employment, and there was no affordable transportation. If a worker got ill or injured, they had no option other than to just keep on working. The working class can’t afford to miss work, even if the doctor visit was covered by insurance- and it usually wasn’t back then. Affordable child care simply didn’t exist.

Of course, she wasn’t stuck in this situation. She could tap out at any time and go back to her normal existence. She didn’t live with the knowledge that she would have to live this existence for the rest of her life, with no vacation, no retirement. So she didn’t develop the despair and depression that plagues so many working class people. But she noticed it and reported it. Many people have torn down the author for ‘slumming’, because she could leave, but I feel she wrote an important book because many people were unaware of the situation the working class faced. One person could scarcely cover the entire problem. I did find some things irritating- her fear that she wouldn’t be able to ‘pass’ as a working class person, that her education would out her. Guess what- not every working class person speaks poorly, and there are such things as libraries that allow even the poor to read. One thing that I feel is important about this book is that it showed to the upper classes (if they choose to read it- hah) that even one of their own, a hard working educated woman, couldn’t make it in the system. So much for calling the working class ‘lazy’!

These days, there is a lot more awareness of the problems of the working poor- but I’m not sure there is any more being done about it. Rents are higher, gasoline costs are higher, but wages are the same as they were 20 years ago. There are still huge numbers of people without health insurance. Perhaps it’s time for a reissue of this book, with an update? Five stars. ( )

A journalist tries to live off of poverty-low wage jobs. She creates the identity that her kids are grown and she's just entering the work force after being a stay at home mom.
She didn't use resume's, but she did start out with cash savings and moved to 3 states to do this experiment.
Part of the book was mundane and there aren't any ground shattering discoveries if any discoveries at all. What did she prove?
I think the author believes everyone should be paid the same wage. What the woman may not know, understand or care about is, some people are quite satisfied to "settle" and never aspire to anything more than low wage jobs.
They may gripe and complain or play the victim, (some don't), but they don't aspire or attempt to do more to do better. ( )