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

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

3.55 of 5 stars 3.55 · rating details · 124,062 ratings · 4,310 reviews

The New York Times bestseller, and one of the most talked about books of the year, Nickel and Dimed has already become a classic of undercover reportage.

Millions of Americans work for poverty-level wages, and one day Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that any job equals a better life...more

Paperback, 240 pages

Published May 1st 2002 by Owl Books (Henry Holt) (first published January 1st 2001)

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Jul 30, 2007 Renee rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, politics-current-events-history

Here's a down and dirty assessment of Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich:

First the positive:
- Interesting premise: writer decides to try to live on the wages that unskilled workers (waitresses, home/hotel cleaners, department store [Walmart, for instance] clerks) earn to see if she can do it and see if she learns anything in the process.
- She exposes some very unethical (even illegal) employer practices such as withholding a worker’s first paycheck until the second pay period.
- She notes so...more Here's a down and dirty assessment of Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich:

First the positive:
- Interesting premise: writer decides to try to live on the wages that unskilled workers (waitresses, home/hotel cleaners, department store [Walmart, for instance] clerks) earn to see if she can do it and see if she learns anything in the process.
- She exposes some very unethical (even illegal) employer practices such as withholding a worker’s first paycheck until the second pay period.
- She notes some of the problems experienced by low-wage workers that aren’t (or may not be) experienced at higher levels of employment (e.g., lack of healthcare benefits, being unable to live in an apartment because of cost-prohibitive security deposits, almost universal drug testing as prerequisite to employment, etc.)
- Funny anecdotes about her experiences on “the other side.”
- She appears to have done some outside research besides her own experiences and observations.

Then the negative:
- The reader recognizes immediately that this writer is a liberal, specifically a bleeding-heart socialist. To those of us on the right, this is a red flag: we know what in the end she’ll advocate. Besides, the dreck that comes from that ideology is just annoying.
- She makes comments about the nurturing aspects of smoking that I find vomit-worthy. Part of the whole getting-out-of-poverty thing is making some good choices – continuing an expensive nicotine habit isn’t one of them. Ms. Ehrenreich breezes past this obvious expense and instead philosophizes about it. Gaack.
- Ditto for children. I never buy the whole thing that poor people can’t (read: don’t have the brain-power or self-control to) limit their reproduction. Children are expensive and in having them (in a marriage or not) without thought to all the costs associated with merely keeping them alive, not to mention THEIR future, people are essentially dooming them to the same life and poverty that they currently experience. I mean, if you as a parent don’t have reliable healthcare it’s one thing, but your kids will definitely need it – so why are you jeopardizing their health? Oh, yeah – Medicaid.
- She has a permissive attitude toward drug use – and even admits to “an indiscretion” of that sort during her experiment. She buys and uses products that mask or flush evidence of the drug use. That whole business is not going to lend credibility to your whole argument – whatever the argument is. And drugs are an expense.
- She always has a car (“rent-a-wreck” in her words) during her experiment. Expense. Now, some of the locations she works do demand personal transportation, but she purposely steers clear of big cities with public transportation. Hmm.
- She never tries to coordinate/share living arrangements and pool resources. After all, she DOES have her limits in this experiment!
- The biggest problem with her experiment is that it is just an experiment – she can return to her comfy upper middle class life, while demanding that the government do something about the minimum wage and poverty.

Yeah, I could go on, but you get the general picture. I would give this read a C+ - readable, but there are some reservations.
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Rob Jenn wrote: "That would make an interesting novel. A story in which all the "superior" rich people sneer down at the poor people for not trying hard e...more Jenn wrote: "That would make an interesting novel. A story in which all the "superior" rich people sneer down at the poor people for not trying hard enough or being smart enough to stake out a better place in life, so the poor people decide to do just that (and succeed). It would be interesting to see where those "superior" people get displaced as result."

It sounds like Animal Farm, to me - the superior group is attacked and destroyed by an "inferior" group who then take power and ... act exactly like the former group. This is human nature and it never goes away - you must be/act/think a certain way to have power, or wealth. If you act differently, someone who acts this way will take it from you.

I don't think you would be doing that anymore, in this novel, since everyone would be working "smart," like you.

Isn't "smart" a relative word and idea? If everyone acts smart ... then just as many people as before are acting dumb, no?

You make more money by doing less. Fine. Go you. But don't be a dickbag to all the people who enable you to live that way and pretend as though you could still have your cozy lifestyle if they weren't more (successfully) ambitious.

Should I be grateful that people aren't ambitious? No. It's a sad state of affairs and kind of depressing. I want the same income equality as you, Corey, and Samantha probably want. I just know it can't be done through tax codes or more government intervention. I know it can't be done if grown-ass adults are cleaning apartments 10 hours a day and saying "well, that's life!" They need to be coming home and studying and continuing their maturation process.

But, here's this awful sham of a book giving them excuses. "No no, the deck is stacked. You cannot win. Don't try harder; complain and whine some more. That'll fix everything!"

I welcome a revolution. I would do well in that climate of chaos, and it would shorten my rise to power. As it is now, lots of old money, old ideas are in charge. By all means, 99%ers, rise up and cast aside the old!

But they won't ... because of that whole lack of ambition thing. Instead, they'll continue the status quo. I don't know what it will take for a critical mass to arise but I'm not afraid of it. I'll be proud of Americans if and when it ever comes.

And, I'll still be one of the rich :-)(less)
updated Mar 15, 2013 02:42pm

Kim Honestly...I agree that if you can't afford to take care of a child, you shouldn't be reproducing. Which, yeah, translates roughly into "poor people s...more
Mar 17, 2013 07:48pm

Jul 18, 2007 Missy rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: no one

Shelves: pastreads

(warning, a nerve has been touched!)
I have experience working with and researching programs that aid the poor and working poor. I hated this book. The only role it could play is as a weak talking piece for starting up serious discussion about the struggles and needs of the poor.

Barbara Ehrenreich may have stepped outside her comfort zone and into the world of the working poor, but she did it with an educated background, with money "just in case", with a pompous attitude, and with the requirement...more

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Rob Of course I'm sure you are going to say it is my fault.
You know I'm going to say it's your fault because you know it is - you hurt yourself at work....more Of course I'm sure you are going to say it is my fault.
You know I'm going to say it's your fault because you know it is - you hurt yourself at work. That means you're probably owed workman's comp. You let your fear of the unknown control you and instead of running the risk of getting fired and facing the possibility of homelessness, you basically let a company get away with abusing you when you could have sued them for the damage they did to you.

Shame on you!

As for the loans - see, this is what's wrong with America right now. You think it's ok to go into debt. You think that just because you "have a calling" for something it's ok to go into debt for it. Again, shame on you!

I never accepted that "before the grace of god go I" nonsense. In part because I don't believe in God, but also because I DO believe in me. I'm better than most and I'll put that to the test. I'll work harder than most. I'll sacrifice more than most. I'll get degrees in things that pay well even if I don't like them because that's what you do to make money. Then you save that money and you have luxury time later on.

But not you - your decadent self thinks all of society owes you. You go into debt without thinking about how "your calling" doesn't pay enough to pay off the loans you're taking out. Hey, I wanted to be an English major myself but at 18 I realized that I would rather be rich and not like what I did for a living than be happy and broke as hell. Now I make a lot of money and I have spare time to do what I love.

When you put yourself into a situation where nothing good can happen to you, and call it "bad luck" that's bull. Being poor isn't like every other class - it's mostly populated by people who just don't get it. Yall don't understand the basic principles of life: 1. Do what others will pay you for. 2. Work hard and sacrifice your spare time for more work. 3. Build a nest egg and insure yourself. 4. Don't go into debt! 5. Surround yourself with winners. etc.

It's like you want to be considered valid no matter what you do. As if life has no rules or best practices and going thousands of dollars into debt for useless B.A.'s is excusable, acceptable, and a good idea.

You lower the bar for us all. I don't mean to flame or harass, I just don't have much respect for people who can't see how they've made bad choices their whole life. And it's worse when they try to blame "luck" as if it was just impossible to see that what they were doing was stupid and would end poorly.(less)
updated Nov 28, 2012 07:46pm

Gloria Diaz Jesus, Bob. I certainly hope you are not a doctor, or anything to do with helping people. You have all the compassion of a rock. I pity you, and your...more
Jan 06, 2013 07:45pm

Apr 23, 2008 Cait rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone who has never worked a demeaning job

Shelves: true-stories-that-are-amazing

The two sentence summary of this book is: PhD and respected writer decides to find out how the other two-thirds live. To this end she goes undercover as an unskilled laborer at three minimum wage jobs (waitress, Wal-mart employee and Merry-Maid) each in a different city, each for one month.

Things I liked:
The premise.

Things I hated:
1. Her shocked tone of discovery. Newsflash! Living on minimum wage is hard/nigh on impossible! Educated people have it pretty easy comparatively! Entry level minimum...more The two sentence summary of this book is: PhD and respected writer decides to find out how the other two-thirds live. To this end she goes undercover as an unskilled laborer at three minimum wage jobs (waitress, Wal-mart employee and Merry-Maid) each in a different city, each for one month.

Things I liked:
The premise.

Things I hated:
1. Her shocked tone of discovery. Newsflash! Living on minimum wage is hard/nigh on impossible! Educated people have it pretty easy comparatively! Entry level minimum wage work is kind of demeaning!

2. Her colonial-anthropologist-among-the-natives style that came across (to me) as super patronizing. Don't these people understand that easy office jobs are just on the other side of a college degree? Don't they understand history enough to fight for unions?

3. Her total shock that no one found her out as an educated person! Working in a diner in the next town over, she was never recognized! Shock!

4. This mostly just lost her style points, but she made a point to always have a working car (it wasn't HER car, but she rented a working car in every city she went to) and had a thousand (two thousand?) dollars of start-up capital to pay first and last months rent and eat while waiting for a job. I think her cover story (which again, she was hurt when no one asked for/cared about) was that she was a newly divorced former stay at home wife, on her own for the first time- so I guess it's conceivable she would have had a little cushion- but I would have found it much more interesting if she'd actually committed to the premise a little more. Especially because she was there such a short time. I know that working minimum wage jobs isn't fun, but couldn't you commit to more than a month? What do you find out in a month?

5. This is really the one that gets me- at the end of her time with the Merry Maids she "comes out" to her co-workers, telling them that really, she's a PhD! And writing a book! The main response is "So you won't be here to cover your shift tomorrow." Once again she is shocked and hurt! But man, if there was ever a teaching moment, she's been working with these women at back-breaking, soul sucking work for no pay and she's surprised that they're worried about how they're going to get though the next day? AGH.

(And also, WTF was she spending money on? I'm also a single healthy person with no debt or dependents and a working car, and I spend less than a thousand dollars a month sustaining my life style. I don't think I live THAT cheaply.)

It just seemed like she was writing from this privileged bubble of white upper-crust academia that I didn't know existed. She was presenting as astonishing findings what I assume to be facts of life for a majority of people.

So. That is why I didn't like this book. My mom, on the other hand, who has actually worked as a waitress to support herself, loved it.(less)

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Aug 31, 2008 Carrie rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Paris HIlton's parents

Dear Barbara Ehrenreich,

How do I resent thee? Let me count the ways:

1. You are a wealthy, highly educated person who went on a half-assed, anthropological slumming vacation.

2. When said vacation was over, you told your coworkers: "Surprise! I'm not a poor person after all! I'm going back now to my comfortable life!"...and then you were surprised that those coworkers were mostly worried about the fact that they'd have to work the next shift with one less person.

3. You also were surprised that th...more

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May 16, 2012 Kristen rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: own, non-fiction, make-you-put-a-gun-in-your-mouth

I wanted to hate this book. I bought it with the intention of hating it. Overeducated liberal writer slumming it on minimum wage, to prove what? That minimum wage is not livable? Well who ever said it was? And looking at the reviews it’s clear this book is a Rorschach test for poverty, anyone poor enough to relate to the indignities she describes will invariable feel some resentment at the minimum wage martyr act, flagellating herself with your everyday life. And how easy it was for me especiall...more I wanted to hate this book. I bought it with the intention of hating it. Overeducated liberal writer slumming it on minimum wage, to prove what? That minimum wage is not livable? Well who ever said it was? And looking at the reviews it’s clear this book is a Rorschach test for poverty, anyone poor enough to relate to the indignities she describes will invariable feel some resentment at the minimum wage martyr act, flagellating herself with your everyday life. And how easy it was for me especially to seethe with anger when the author repeatedly names my job alone as the one position she would simply not consider, no reason ever given, simply that working at the front desk of a hotel was out of the question, and what a shame as I guarantee that it would have provided innumerable opportunities for the sort of dead-end job self-abasement for which she was searching. Ironically I read this entire book at work over the past two days, on U of M graduation weekend, where more than any other time we are just overflowing with demanding self-satisfied yuppies, so needless to say I kept the cover faced down to avoid ironic pity smirks from smug assholes, in retrospect I should have flaunted the cover openly, hoping liberal guilt might bring in some tips.

That the people who actually work these jobs will find Ehrenreich insulting, naïve, and condescending is a given. In the beginning I certainly did, but in the author’s defense at no time did she ever claim this was anything but an experiment, she never pretends to be anything she is not, not to the readers at least. So what’s the alternative then? Actual housekeepers and salesclerks rarely being offered book deals while lunching at French restaurants with editors, the alternative is this book doesn’t get written and this conversation doesn’t happen. Her goal of illustrating the vast income inequality and the nearly inescapable cycle of poverty is laudable and something I agree wholeheartedly with. In the end her failure is her reluctance to follow much of her thoughts to their logical conclusions; she constantly touches on these very powerful moments that ultimately are wasted because she fails to recognize them when they come. In the end I think the scathing reviewer comments at the author’s expense are misplaced. An enjoyable read but sadly it misses its mark quite often.

What she does get right is how the criminalization of marijuana is a means of controlling the population. With the ubiquitous drug test favored by low wage employers geared solely towards marijuana, making one feel like a criminal over a little bit of herb, the result is dehumanizing applicants even before their first day. She routinely acknowledges that the only way she was able to fulfill the demands of these jobs is relying on the store good health built up over a lifetime of upper middle class living, not to mention starting out with a car and sum of money not available to her coworkers. She points out how any health or financial setbacks would ruin her completely. I would have liked to see more of a connection made between our demands for cheaper and cheaper goods and the cost paid by the working poor in America and beyond. And that the failure of public services in America to provide even the most basic standard of living are always paid for in the end by the cost of incarcerating more of our citizens than any western nation. A number of times she touches on the deep ontological angst that come from living in such insecurity, but as an outsider looking in fails to really capture its essence. And her assumptions that because she doesn’t see visible anger that people aren’t angry? They are. But simultaneously there is a real disconnect among the working poor who have been sold on the ‘American Dream’ fantasy and reality. The ugly result of people taking this myth too seriously are quite apparent in the most hideous aspects of the Republican Party for sure, but less obviously so in how the author had so thoroughly disassociated herself the working poor she is only one generation removed from.

At the heart of this book is the impossibility of existing in such manner, but yet people do. People live their whole lives that way. I read a Chekov short story at the same time, of exiles coping with life in Siberia. One man is unable to deal with his losses and yet still makes one attempt after another to carve out a life for himself continually repeated his personal motto “Even in Siberia people live.” Another man gives up, asking for nothing and so wanting for nothing. At the end a judgment is made by a third character against the man who wants nothing, as it’s better to be miserable than to feel nothing. The story ends with everyone crying themselves to sleep. Ehrenreich should have read that story; it speaks more to the condition of the working poor than her book does. Even in America people live.
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Jul 17, 2007 Doc Opp rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: airplane_reads

If you're looking for socialist propaganda - full of rhetorical tricks and short on evidence, then this is the book for you. If, however, you're hoping for an unbiased treatment of the life of the poor, a reasonable economic/policy analysis of poverty, or any sort of insight into American culture, then this book will be profoundly disappointing.

There are some interesting issues covered, such as wage inequalities and the plight of the urban poor, but that's really all I can say in its favor. The...more

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Dec 15, 2007 Paul rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: crybabies, entitlement wonks, NE1 who is never worked

WAA, WAAAA, WAAAAAAA...boo hooooo

What was the publisher thinking? Letting a biology Ph.d write an economics book. There are so many economic inaccuracies in this book they are too numerous to mention. The most important theory she mangles is that she thinks wages she should be raised even if there are enough employees to hire at piss-poor wages. She believes that (she eludes to it, but never makes the point clearly) it is the employers responsibility to provide enough wage to make sure everyone...more

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Oct 14, 2007 Candi rated it 1 of 5 stars

I wanted to like this book. I thought the premise was fantastic. But overall, as someone who actually has lived on minimum wage (even supporting a child on minimum wage back when minimum wage was scary low), this book comes up short in several ways.

First of all, Barbara Ehrenreich has a horribly privileged, ivory tower view of how poor people must live. While she does talk to some people who are scraping by, she assumes the majority of poor people make the same crummy decisions as the few to who...more

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Nov 27, 2008 Trevor rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: economics, social-theory

Very quick explanation of the premise of this one: a woman, who is a writer/journalist, is talking to her publisher about what she wants to write about next and says, “someone ought to write a book about how hard it is to get by on the minimum wage in America.” The publisher says, “Okey-dokey (the book is set in the US so I’m trying to give you a feeling of verisimilitude) you’ve hired.” (High fives all around)

Before I started this book I really worried. I mean, I’m a bit of a worrier anyway – b...more

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Jun 15, 2008 Abby rated it 4 of 5 stars

In this book, the author moves to three different cities, pretends to be a homemaker re-entering the work force, and tries to survive on minimum wage jobs. It's not easy. She works as a waitress, at a nursing home, as a cleaning lady, and at Walmart. She lives in motel rooms and eats fast food when she has no where to cook.

I really enjoyed this book, partially because it was like a serious flashback to my own life. I went with Dale to South Carolina for 4 months in the fall of, I don't know, pr...more

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Dec 30, 2007 Nandi Crawford rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nitty-and-dowright-gritty

I'm going to step on some toes here and I apologize if I do. I AM one of the working poor that she talks about here and I DO believe in pulling myself up and making a better life for myself. But what I want to know is this. Unless you have been where I am, how can you comment? How can you also call her a bleeding heart? Is this a country for the haves only? And the have nots just have not? uhh uhh, I just don't understand. We got an election coming up and some folks are fussing about this countr...more

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Aug 05, 2008 Matt rated it 3 of 5 stars

"Nickel and Dimed" amounts to a good account of living a back-breaking existence while doing unskilled work. It offers a ground-up view of what it's like to apply for work at Wal-Mart, what sorts of neighbors you have when you live in a pay-by-the-week hotel, and the crap food you're forced to live on when you earn $6 an hour. Barbara Ehrenreich is a biology PhD who decided not to interview poor people or follow them around. Instead she decided it would be more interesting to be a low-wage worke...more "Nickel and Dimed" amounts to a good account of living a back-breaking existence while doing unskilled work. It offers a ground-up view of what it's like to apply for work at Wal-Mart, what sorts of neighbors you have when you live in a pay-by-the-week hotel, and the crap food you're forced to live on when you earn $6 an hour. Barbara Ehrenreich is a biology PhD who decided not to interview poor people or follow them around. Instead she decided it would be more interesting to be a low-wage worker for awhile. It makes for some sensational copy and good anecdotes.

But it's not really a great piece of scholarship. Lo and behold, we are forced to conclude, minimum wage (circa 2000) is not a sustainable wage for any kind of living. Wages are too low and rents are too high. Was there another possible outcome?

Sure, we read the book to confirm our beliefs about low-wage work – that you just can't live on the wages, that a lot of these jobs are exhausting, that you're treated without dignity (both by middle management as well as the public-at-large), that you have to suffer through drug tests, that your first paycheck is often withheld, that the circumstances of the working poor don't improve along with the fortunes of the company, etc. ("The Maids charges $25 per person-hour. The company gets $25 and we get $6.65 for each hour we work?") But don't mistake this book for one that does hypothesis testing.

But what it makes for is a good personal journey. And it is read best as a narrative of her own feelings and impressions. On being a maid, she writes that "even convenience store clerks, who are $6-an-hour gals themselves, seem to look down on us." … "There's no pay for the half hour or so we spend in the office at the end of the day, sorting out the dirty rags before they're washed and refilling our cleaning fluid bottles." … "As far as I can figure, my coworkers' neediness – because that's what it is – stems from chronic deprivation."

And at Wal-Mart, employees can wear blue jeans on Fridays, but they have to pay $1 for the privilege.

But insofar as it's a personal journey, you also have to get through a lot of self-aggrandizement. Of the circumstances of her coworkers, she writes, "it strikes me, in my middle-class solipsism, that there is gross improvidence in some of these arrangements." Upon seeing a church called 'Deliverance', she writes, "Could there really be a whole congregation of people who have never heard of the James Dickey novel and subsequent movie?"

At the end of the book, she has answered her question, "how do these people get by on their pay?" with a resounding, "not well." And so, the main question she wants to know is why the working poor suffers its indignities, both individually and collectively. And she offers some good insight – that there are costs ("friction") to trying to find a new job or moving somewhere, that the working poor are often ill-informed, that corporate and management policies are designed with carrot-and-stick to urge and threaten the submission of its employees. And to the degree that it's universally true, it's fun to ponder.
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Sep 13, 2007 Sarah Keliher rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: george w. bush

When this book came out, I was working in a busy bookstore in a fairly small town. We had a stack of them at the counter, and I read bits on my breaks. While I was glad to see a popular book addressing the problems of the working poor, I couldn't help but feel like she'd taken a vacation in my life and then made a bunch of money writing a book about it, something she could only have achieved because she had already been in a position of privilege. Your average house cleaner, lacking an advanced...more

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Jun 20, 2007 Zoë rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: history-class, gets-you-thinking

In her book Barbara Ehrenreich investigates just how working class people in the United States make ends meet. Ehrenreich goes displaces her self three times, in Key West, Maine and Minnesota, allows herself just over $1000, gets housing and a wage paying job, and tries to live as a wage worker for a month. The result is a sad illustration of what its like for millions of Americans who live at the poverty level, depending on wages.
Ehrenreich’s experiment does have circumstances that make her e...more

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Jul 22, 2012 Skylar Burris rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: economics, politics

Raise your hand if you have ever worked a minimum wage job. (It wasn't pleasant, was it?) Now, keep your hand raised if you STILL work a minimum wage job. Whoa. A lot of hands just went down. A LOT. And that is the point Barbara Ehrenreich doesn't entertain.

While Nickel and Dimed is interesting and in some ways eye-opening, it isn’t a particularly well-researched or well-argued economic or social commentary. It’s more of a journalism feature with some editorial opinions thrown in. The rhetoric...more Raise your hand if you have ever worked a minimum wage job. (It wasn't pleasant, was it?) Now, keep your hand raised if you STILL work a minimum wage job. Whoa. A lot of hands just went down. A LOT. And that is the point Barbara Ehrenreich doesn't entertain.

While Nickel and Dimed is interesting and in some ways eye-opening, it isn’t a particularly well-researched or well-argued economic or social commentary. It’s more of a journalism feature with some editorial opinions thrown in. The rhetoric is well turned, even poetic in parts, and liable to excite emotion. Sometimes it made me feel guilty, sometimes angered, sometimes compassionate.

Barbara Ehrenreich attempts to describe how difficult it is to get by on minimum wage by taking on such jobs herself, but with several advantages – a car, a $1,500 starting fund, and a lack of dependent children. (I don’t mention her education because she doesn’t use it when applying and higher education may actually prove a disadvantage if you are trying to work minimum wage jobs.) Thus, if it’s difficult for her, you can imagine how difficult it must be for people without those advantages. Her narrative, which is an easy read, does expose readers to the struggles of “wage slaves” as well as to the unique life stories and personalities of the eclectic people she encounters. Her experiment lacks realism, however, not just in the advantages she begins with, but also in the disadvantage she gives herself – she quits every job after a month and starts another, often requiring a different skill set, from the bottom.

This approach ignores two facts. One, that most people don’t drop from the sky into a new town and start from scratch. (She admits this: “True, most of my fellow workers are better cushioned than I am; they live with spouses or grown children or they have other jobs.”) Two, the fact that hardly anyone who *sticks with the same job* for more than a year will stay at minimum wage. Small but regular raises are not uncommon, and assistant managers and managers are generally promoted from within the ranks of wage laborers (she does mention this fact, but without much thought about it). A more realistic experiment on getting by would have involved her sharing rent with a friend or relative and working for a full year at one job and then filing for the EITC with her taxes. She never mentions the EITC. She speaks of how hard it was for her to get a food voucher (multiple phone calls, travel, etc.), but nowhere speaks of the largest wealth transfer for the working poor in existence in the U.S., which is obtained annually via a refundable tax. (Unless I missed it?)

The thing is, like most writers on the subject of pop econ, she doesn’t make a firm distinction between the temporarily poor and the permanent underclass or delve deeply into what divides the two. We like to talk about “the bottom 20 percent,” without considering that, of the people *currently* in the bottom twenty percent of income earners, 95% probably will not be there sixteen years from now. (We see this trend when we look at the income of actual individuals over many years rather than merely drawing conclusions from categories, which do not represent people, because people move between categories over a lifetime.) Some people who are minimum wage earners today will even be in the highest quintile sixteen years from now – more, in fact, than will still be in the bottom quintile. And their children will likely spend less time at minimum wage than they did because they will be given advantages by their parents, as this author was. Ehrenreich mentions her own father who “somehow” went from the mines to the suburbs, but she never seems to consider that his experience might be anything other than exceptional or that it might have something to say about what enables people to escape poverty.

The book is primarily focused on the issue of wages. However, raising the minimum wage to a “living wage” is highly likely to lead to inflation (if not higher unemployment coupled with a larger black market for illegal labor), which will mean that the new living wage will eventually cease to be a living wage and have to be raised again, and the same problem will recur in endless cycle. There are a variety of factors that make it extremely difficult for people to get by on minimum wage beyond the wage itself. The largest contributing factor to poverty – which we see again in again in the anecdotes in this book - is the disintegration of the family. Divorce, out of wedlock birth, and single parenthood are all expensive propositions. It has been said that the surest way to steadily move upward economically is to get married and, most importantly, to *stay* married, because of the economies of scale and division of labor made possible by marriage and, alternatively, the division of assets and (often) single parenthood resulting from divorce. We also see the effects of the disintegration of extended family, which is a huge contributor to the lack of affordable housing, because multi-family homes become less common. There are obviously many more contributors to poverty, but she focuses primary on hourly wages and on criticizing managers and employers (people who were often themselves low-wage employees five to ten years ago).

What would truly be interesting is to see where *all* of the people she worked with during this time are today. How many are still earning minimum wage? How many are assistant managers? How many managers? How many in jail? How many in college? I haven’t read the 10th Anniversary Edition of this book, but I’m guessing she’s going to be talking about people *currently* in this “wage slave” category, and not the same people she worked alongside ten years ago and where they are now.

I do not think this book is a “Marxist rant” as so many have categorized it, but it does put forth the standard liberal political solutions to the complex problem of poverty without really examining the long-term effects those policies would have and whether or not they would actually achieve their stated goals.
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Sep 27, 2008 Adrienne rated it 2 of 5 stars

DISCLAIMER: This is my rant on the “classic Marxist rant” by Barbara Ehrenreich in the form of Nickel and Dimed. REALLY. I am not saying that we should not help poor people. I am mostly just annoyed by the author. If my political ranting will bother you, please don't read this. AND if you do, you are not allowed to think less of me. You may disagree, but know that I actually am a nice, caring, empathetic person. :)

Unfortunately, Ehrenreich did not present much shocking or new information in her...more DISCLAIMER: This is my rant on the “classic Marxist rant” by Barbara Ehrenreich in the form of Nickel and Dimed. REALLY. I am not saying that we should not help poor people. I am mostly just annoyed by the author. If my political ranting will bother you, please don't read this. AND if you do, you are not allowed to think less of me. You may disagree, but know that I actually am a nice, caring, empathetic person. :)

Unfortunately, Ehrenreich did not present much shocking or new information in her book. Even if she had, her Marxist cynicism and naive hypocrisy overshadowed her message. Of course, if anyone had been placed in such a situation, she would have been appalled by the tremendous difficulty of the way the poor are forced to live. But Ehrenreich’s obnoxious inclination to think anyone in a managerial position is malicious and purposefully cruel was overbearing. The managers were not in a much better position than those under them, and they have to do a “meaningless” job as well. She even began realizing that she was becoming uncontrollably irate at any moment’s notice. How can she criticize others for acting the exact way she felt because of the degrading circumstances they share? Not to mention, she pretty much had been acting this prejudiced way before this epiphany, but earlier she directed it at those in higher positions instead of her equals.

Also, let’s go into her Communist ideals (even though she sort of denied being a Marxist, she quoted him a few times and paraphrased Mao’s words). She is advocating (by implication) a system way worse than the Goliath that is Wal-Mart. She finds it utterly appalling that people have some of their basic rights taken away by agreeing to work for certain companies. (By the way, have you ever worked for a corporation? That's what they do.) However, you have absolutely no rights in a Communist society. Remember Animal Farm? After a while, the pigs look exactly like the human men they had replaced in their rebellion. Plus, she’s complaining about the rich 20% at the top and wanting to help the poor 20% on the bottom, completely ignoring the 60% in between. She just wants to replace the top with the bottom, and then where would we be? Bingo! The same place. Ehrenreich means basically an “inherited kingdom.” Ironic that she feels that the poor should just naturally inherit the country. She wants her kingdom to be like the socialist/communist world because she feels that the United States will not take care of the proletariat. But I don’t know if 80% should give up their rights so that the 20% can rule (oh, and kill everyone else in the process--that's what Communists do).

As far as her complaints about “rights” are concerned, let’s look at her previous life. She is UPPER middle class, which is not nearly the same as the average American. Her job is as a journalist, free-lance, I believe. So, she does not have the average structured job, and her job is to speak her mind and say whatever she wants however she wants. Of course she’s going to be upset that she can’t curse in front of customers. Some customers may be offended by such language, but she can’t see that; she only knows that she wants to say the f-word on the job and she can’t. Heaven forbid.

She seemed to be shocked by the fact that her employers didn’t want her standing around talking on the job either. I understand that we should allow people to be human and enjoy working with each other. I like to see employees joke with each other and get along, but I don’t like to need help and can’t get any because some “associates” are standing around talking and ignoring their customers. I don't agree with the Wal-Mart "time theft" idea, but she does need to realize she's at work.

I feel that the story would have been much more compelling and upsetting if she had just followed a few of the women with whom she worked. Her story just wasn’t interesting. I certainly don’t mean to make light of or ignore such a serious subject, but it could have been done so much better.(Have you seen Morgan Spurlock's 30 Days where he and his girlfriend REALLY live below the poverty line? Now, that's worth seeing.)

Also, I would have been interested (and I think it would really have been fair) to give statistics on those living below the poverty line who are on welfare, are illegal immigrants (if they were included), have mental illnesses, etc. Or, I would like to know if that 20% of working poor is all exactly similar to the people has associated with. I just want a complete and honest picture either way so that I’m not wondering what it is. We need to take care of all the people, but we need to know the circumstances. Also, I know that most of the working poor are good, honest, hard-working people, but we know that there are still many who abuse the system, and the way Ehrenreich talks, you’d think that the only ones abusing the system were the managers (“classic Marxist” attitude). Instead of reading her book, maybe some of the people (managers) should read The Female Advantage and learn some managing skills. :)

I also would like to know how raising the minimum wage affects the economy. If it helps fix this problem, great. But it would seem that if we raise the minimum wage, then prices will start going up. I’m no economist, so I wouldn’t know, but I would have liked more information about how to help the problem instead of her ideas about getting thrown in prison for protesting.

I will admit that I probably have some prejudice attitudes that she addresses in her book, but I don’t feel that she really proved her point. Eating in a healthier manner and not smoking or drinking are not going to solve the poor’s problems, but when people are counting pennies, every one counts. Ehrenreich said that she never got to the point of eating lentil soup, but if she had, she would have saved money (and it would have been healthier). It seems that, just like everyone else, convenience takes precedence over everything else.

In the end, the condition of the working poor is an important issue that we all need to work on and try to find more solutions for. I just don’t agree with the way she thinks and her attitudes about some of the things that she found. This book does have some redeeming qualities, but as I said, she got in the way.
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Jan 16, 2008 Kelly rated it 1 of 5 stars

As someone who grew up as part of the "working poor," I have had all of these kinds of jobs myself at one time or another. Most of my family members still do. So for me, Nickel and Dimed was kind of a big "DUH." I mean, seriously, does any of this come as a surprise to anyone? Did anyone ever really think it was easy to make ends meet off of a low/minimum wage job? It's a preposterous idea.

In my opinion, Ehrenreich's writing has a patronizing undertone, and seeks to make the reader feel pity for...more

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Dec 12, 2007 Annie rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: everyone

I picked this up and read it in one day. I also checked the stats for 2007 since the copyright for this was 2001. It really made my blood boil at times and I have "been there and done that" as an employee. I am currently looking for work and even with a B.A., good paying jobs with benefits are impossible to find. Everyone who reads this will hopefully understand the "working poor" and treat them better.

Ehrenreich turns her gimlet eye on the view from the workforce's bottom rung. Determined to fi...more

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Nov 10, 2007 Vincent rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Initially, I thought it would be enough to say that I did not like the tone of the author/narrator. However, after having read some of the other comments on this book, I feel I need to say a little more.

The book might have been an engaging social experiment if the author/narrator took the task a little more seriously. Her ongoing flippant commentary detracted from the issue at hand. Also, I felt she never really digs deep enough into the situations she places herself in.

The book is written as a...more

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Sep 29, 2007 Virginia rated it 1 of 5 stars

Ergh. I read this book while in grad school, taking an anthropology class.

I was also earning a whopping $5.83 an hour, and reading this book just made me grind my teeth.

Totally fatuous piece of crap. It STILL ticks me off.

I felt like she was so patronizing and rude. It seemed like yet another case of some stupid rich white person talking about the plight of the poor and the downtrodden, all while doing absolutely NOTHING to help alleviate it. Not to mention whining about how hard it is. URGH.

Gr...more

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Mar 21, 2010 Adam rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: labor

This is one of those ubiquitous books, being a national bestseller as well as a staple on labor and feminist reading lists. I was never motivated to read it because I kinda assumed that I was already familiar with the issues and in agreement with the conclusions. I was also a bit reluctant to open it because the methodology struck me as potentially problematic. I feared that Ehrenreich's “going” low-wage would be offensive by claiming an unfounded authority of the subject of poverty by a tempora...more This is one of those ubiquitous books, being a national bestseller as well as a staple on labor and feminist reading lists. I was never motivated to read it because I kinda assumed that I was already familiar with the issues and in agreement with the conclusions. I was also a bit reluctant to open it because the methodology struck me as potentially problematic. I feared that Ehrenreich's “going” low-wage would be offensive by claiming an unfounded authority of the subject of poverty by a temporary adventure, or being disingenuous to or even intruding on other low-wage earners with whom she would encounter.

I finally picked up the book as part of an assigned curriculum for a class I was teaching. While I did have a good understanding of the barriers to escaping poverty and its effects on low-wage, and especially women, workers, “Nickel and Dimed” really helped me feel the issues much more. For me personally, the book succeeded in adding a psychological and emotional dimension to poverty labor. At one point she describes being treated by management in a way that made her have the same feelings as when she was bullied in junior high, revealing the sometimes dehumanizing experience of work. There is also the psychological abuse felt by domestic workers who clean extravagant homes but live in substandard housing, or healthcare workers who lack healthcare for themselves.

Ehrenreich shows the “hidden costs” of being poor. The obstacle of security payment to rent an apartment, the lower energy level and higher risk of sickness from malnutrition, and the crushing sensation of insecurity. Indeed, the costs are so much more than monetary. This book really conveys how poverty labor affects one's entire outlook and worldview.

Happily, Ehrenreich's methodology was self-aware and critical. She never forgets that she as a researcher cannot truly know poverty in the same way as the workers she acquaintances and befriends, nor can she fully express their experiences. But the author's participant-observation magnifies both her experience and those of others. The result is something much more penetrating than a journalistic endeavor and much broader than a personal case study. It is clear that Ehrenreich does not ask for the reader's sympathy, but it was difficult for me to not wince at the harrowing descriptions of her attempts to survive as a waitress, a domestic cleaner, a Wal-Mart employee.

Given the integrity to Ehrenreich's approach, the sincerity in her prose, the clarity in her analysis, and the power of stories of the workers she meets, I was dismayed at how many of my students clung to myth that to succeed in America one only needs to work hard. The only time that some of these students became shocked and sympathetic is when Ehrenreich shows the reader of the real risk of homelessness for low-wage earners, and cites the statistic that indeed, it is estimated that almost one-fifth of the homeless are employed. Interestingly, there was something about the issue of shelter that caused some of the class to challenge their accepted ideas about work and prosperity. “Nickel and Dimed” demonstrates how the system of work is stacked against workers, how democracy and civil liberties are “checked at the door” upon entering the workplace, yet some students still believed that the workers themselves were somehow responsible for their poverty. This shows the need to not only fight againat poor working conditions, unregulated sectors, and the disappearance of social services, but also the dominant cultural attitudes towards work.(less)

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Oct 08, 2010 Mary JL rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone; those interested in current problems

Recommended to Mary JL by: No one

Shelves: non-fiction

This book really illustrated what is meant by the "working poor"

The author, in good health, with a car, can barely make ends meet for just a few months. Imagine those who work this way their entire life. What happens if you need dental or medical care? Many low wage jobs offer no inusrance or very poor insurance.

The statement is often made "look for a better job". In what spare time? Get an education? Yes, certainly, IF you can get a loan for tuition.

This book does point out that many people are...more

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Oct 29, 2009 Brent rated it 2 of 5 stars

Recommended to Brent by: Scott Knapp

So, the author got paid to wait tables in Florida, clean homes in Maine, and organize clothes at Wal-Mart in Minnesota. All right, all of that is completely believable. What's difficult to comprehend is that she also gets paid to write books.

She makes a lot of great points, but the style she does it with is totally condescending. She's so pleased with her own concept that she cannot help but remind readers at least every ten or so pages that she's actually very highly educated. "You might think...more

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Mar 19, 2008 Madeline rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: assigned-reading

For the most part, this is a really eye-opening read. It describes an experiement by journalist Barbara Ehrenreich where she takes a series of minimum wage jobs (waitress, hotel maid, housekeeper, nursing home aide, and Wal-Mart employee) and tries to survive on the earnings from those jobs. "Surviving," it turns out, means living in crappy hotels and eating fast food while trying to keep two jobs. Her descriptions of the dirty secrets of the jobs she takes are really interesting - when she clea...more For the most part, this is a really eye-opening read. It describes an experiement by journalist Barbara Ehrenreich where she takes a series of minimum wage jobs (waitress, hotel maid, housekeeper, nursing home aide, and Wal-Mart employee) and tries to survive on the earnings from those jobs. "Surviving," it turns out, means living in crappy hotels and eating fast food while trying to keep two jobs. Her descriptions of the dirty secrets of the jobs she takes are really interesting - when she cleans houses, she describes how the maids essentially just wipe away dirt without actually bothering to disinfect surfaces - but I'll be honest, I was a little disappointed by how few explosive behind-the-scenes revelations she gives her readers. Also, she's really reluctant to tell exactly which restaurant, maid service, hotel chain, and nursing home she was employed by, although she had no trouble name-dropping when it came time to work for Wal-Mart. I wanted to know exactly which restaurant that was "part of a well-known national chain" (called "Jerry's" in Ehrenreich's book) makes servers prepare salad with their bare hands and usually doesn't have soap in the employee bathrooms. As muckrakers go, Ehrenreich is a bit of a wimp.
She also can't seem to shake the whole "I Am A Fearless And Noble Journalist Who Sacrifices Everything FOR THE PEOPLE" mindset she starts out with. When she quits each minimum-wage job to move on to the next one, she makes sure to tell her fellow employees that she's (gasp!) NOT actually a divorced woman with no college education, she's actually a JOURNALIST with a PHD who's INVESTIGATING THIS ESTABLISHMENT FOR A BOOK!!!
Ehrenreich is clearly expecting her fellow employees to be shocked and awed by her espionage skills and applaud her for pretending to be One Of Them so she can write a best-selling tell-all, but that doesn't happen. Every single time Ehrenreich reveals her true identity, the response is an overwhelming, "Um...good for you?"
And it is hilarious.

Read for: Surviving the American Dream(less)

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Apr 27, 2009 Kate rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, owned

At the time I read this book, I was about two years into a three-year stint as a waitress. I remember disagreeing with Ehrenreich on some of her conclusions, but time--and another brief waitressing stint--have tempered that disagreement.

For me, waitressing was freedom--freedom from expectations, from responsibility, from job stress. I was coming off of a series of "professional" jobs that I absolutely hated, and all I knew of work was absolute misery and boredom. Waitressing is a lot of things,...more At the time I read this book, I was about two years into a three-year stint as a waitress. I remember disagreeing with Ehrenreich on some of her conclusions, but time--and another brief waitressing stint--have tempered that disagreement.

For me, waitressing was freedom--freedom from expectations, from responsibility, from job stress. I was coming off of a series of "professional" jobs that I absolutely hated, and all I knew of work was absolute misery and boredom. Waitressing is a lot of things, but it's not stressful and it's usually not boring. While it doesn't take huge amounts of brainpower, you're constantly on the move, and there is a multitasking element that most people who have never waited tables before don't really appreciate. My family thought I had lost my mind, even if they were too polite to say so.

The other thing it is, which I didn't fully appreciate at the time, is hard on your body. The first time around, I was 23-26 years old. I could work a double shift and be tired, but not totally destroyed. The second time, I was 28 and a five-hour shift had me ready for traction. Partially this was due to the fact that I wasn't used to it anymore, but those two years in the middle were enough to make me feel old and decrepit.

And of course, there is the money. You can make damn good money waiting tables, but you're not going to do it in the type of place Ehrenreich was working, or the type of place I was working, for that matter. And while I made enough to basically support myself, I couldn't handle anything unexpected--car repairs, doctor bills, vet bills, etc. I had a safety net--my parents--but most people I worked with did not. And, like Ehrenreich, I had an exit strategy. I had a degree, work experience, and awesome contacts that helped me get a professional job when waitressing got old.

But in a way, it's still liberating to know that I can always support myself by waiting tables, if I had to. I still think, though, that WalMart = Satan.(less)

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Feb 15, 2008 Max rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Lay sociologists who like lefty nonfiction

Following a long tradition of immersion journalism, Ehrenreich sheds her identity of middle-upper class writer and goes to work waitressing, cleaning houses, and slogging a Wal-Mart job to show that it is near impossible to survive in the late-dot-com boom of Clinton's America. What makes her experience interesting is her voice, but what takes away significantly from her attempt is the constant reminder that she is a wealthy, highly educated, white American and that she is lucky to have her supp...more Following a long tradition of immersion journalism, Ehrenreich sheds her identity of middle-upper class writer and goes to work waitressing, cleaning houses, and slogging a Wal-Mart job to show that it is near impossible to survive in the late-dot-com boom of Clinton's America. What makes her experience interesting is her voice, but what takes away significantly from her attempt is the constant reminder that she is a wealthy, highly educated, white American and that she is lucky to have her support networks. While I appreciated her disclosure (and it is frequent) of her clandestine real-life, it also served to undercut much of her perspective about what it is like to live at that level for life. It is most notable when she tries to organize the Wal-Mart employees towards a union. She always has the option of going back to her own life - as hard as she commits to her research project she will always know that there is the safety net of her wealth and education. But for the millions of working poor, they will not buck the unfair system, they will not refuse to take a drug test, they will suffer whatever base humiliation presented because all they know is life isn't fair and they have limited options. Ehrenreich doesn't blame the working poor for their plight - far from it - but often her explanatory sections read like the Bwana roughing it with the natives. She certainly has guts - her living situations were desperate at best, and she put her body through the ringer to suffer the daily stressload that comes with working for near minimum-wage. But because she does not deeply explore the lives of the people she comes into contact with, her story does not read like a modern-day Working; it does not truly reveal the entire life of the Worker. She tries to engage her fellow employees in conversation about how they make their ends meet, but after she reveals her true mission to them it is at the end of her experiment and she doesn't follow them home to really explore how single mothers handle child care, how Gen X kids become managers and escalate and how they come to learn how to exploit people. She relays some of one conversation she had with the man who owned the cleaning company, but it was still while she was "under-cover". Ehrenreich has written a light travelogue to being a working poor person, a month-long foray into the jungle. It is by no means a ethnography.
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Nov 06, 2007 Carrie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: how-to

For all the author says about the greatness of the American blue-collar worker (she even brags about her husband being one), she seems to think the work is beneath her. It seems like she is trying to shock her readers by exposing the harshness of poverty. But is it really that shocking for her employer to tell her she missed a spot when she's working as a cleaning woman? Sure, there are bad bosses out there, but you can't expect your boss to overlook your bad job cleaning a house just because yo...more

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Jul 08, 2007 Khaya rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: readablenonfiction, thought-provoking, bookclub, we-re-all-going-to-hell

My book club plans to do this one eventually, but I thought I'd get a jump start since Margueya was reading it. I found it highly readable and affecting on the one hand, and very agenda-driven on the other. Boy, did she make me feel guilty about having a cleaning lady! On the other hand, Saadia argued that cleaning ladies need the money and the employment, and why feel guilty about paying someone for a service that they willingly offer in exchange for money that they need and want? I definitely...more

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May 16, 2007 Ben Lee rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book is about the experience of a journalist who tries surviving for a few months by working several minimum wage jobs, like waitressing, housekeeping, and working at Wal-Mart, and her thoughts on some of the things that are messed up about the way businesses work. Her story confirms what I already suspected. That it sucks to be poor. It is pretty alarming, though, to read about the life conditions of some of her co-workers. I wonder if there were as many people this poor even long time ago...more This book is about the experience of a journalist who tries surviving for a few months by working several minimum wage jobs, like waitressing, housekeeping, and working at Wal-Mart, and her thoughts on some of the things that are messed up about the way businesses work. Her story confirms what I already suspected. That it sucks to be poor. It is pretty alarming, though, to read about the life conditions of some of her co-workers. I wonder if there were as many people this poor even long time ago, like before there were big corporations, and everyone was farmers. Yeah, I guess there were... because I remember in school learning about how there were landowners and then there were sharecroppers, and how the sharecroppers got screwed. It got me thinking about what my life would be like if I had to work those kind of jobs. Where you have to work really hard jobs, where you work up a real sweat because you're working so hard, like a horse, and you're paid so little you can barely afford to house and feed yourself. Like what would it be like to be a farmer. I do think though that there has to be a sort of gratifying feeling about doing physical labor for one's livelihood. Like, if you were successful, you'd really feel like you built something up. But then I'm sure that people who do manual labor because they have to probably think they'd feel more satisfied making more money while sitting on butt in an air-conditioned office. Maybe at some point in my life, I should do some really hard manual labor for a period of time. Just to know what it's like. You know, it can be like, character building or something. Form some tough callouses on my soft woman hands. I read an article today about farmers, and some of the innovative ways they find to keep their farm running. In the article, there is a young couple, pretty close to my age, starting out their lives as farmers. Both went to college. They made about $40,000 combined over a year for all their work. It's pretty mind-blowing why they would choose to do this... become farmers, I mean, but also admirable in a way. Anyway. Read the book... it's pretty interesting.(less)

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Sep 07, 2007 Shaina rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

Now, a month after I've read this book, I'm having a hard time remembering what I learned from it, which about sums the book up for me. Ehrenreich is an engaging writer, and the idea behind the book is an interesting conceit--take one highly-educated woman and put her undercover working minimum-wage jobs for a year and see if she can make a living. However, and this may be more of a commentary about me than about the book, I found that I walked away learning about what I expected to: making a li...more

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About Barbara Ehrenreich

Barbara Ehrenreich is the bestselling author of sixteen previous books, including the bestsellers Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch. A frequent contributor to Harpers and The Nation, she has also been a columnist at The New York Times and Time Magazine.

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More about Barbara Ehrenreich...

Books by Barbara Ehrenreich

Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America

Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream

For Her Own Good: Two Centuries of the Experts' Advice to Women

This Land Is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation

Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy

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“What you don't necessarily realize when you start selling your time by the hour is that what you're really selling is your life.” — 64 people liked it

“When someone works for less pay than she can live on — when, for example, she goes hungry so that you can eat more cheaply and conveniently — then she has made a great sacrifice for you, she has made you a gift of some part of her abilities, her health, and her life. The 'working poor,' as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society. They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high. To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor, to everyone else.” — 32 people liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1869.Nickel_and_Dimed?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1312044755l/1869.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1869.Nickel_and_Dimed?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich[/url]

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

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