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

by Barbara Ehrenreich

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. As Gail, one of my restaurant coworkers put it, “you give and you give.”

Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., issued a report entitled “Hardships in America: The Real Story of Working Families,” which found an astounding 29 percent of American families living in what could be more reasonably defined as poverty.

In early 2007, for example, Circuit City laid off 3,400 employees because they had been around too long and had seen their wages creep up to $10–20 an hour. They were allowed to reapply for their old jobs after a ten-week “cooling off” period—during which they would presumably overcome any resentment occasioned by the layoff—but their new jobs would be paid at the minimum wage.

Some Wal-Mart “associates” reported that as part of the effort to drive out long-term, and possibly unhealthy, employees, “managers have suddenly barred older employees with back or leg problems from sitting on stools.”1