Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
by Barbara Ehrenreich
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Book Summary Information
Author: Barbara EhrenreichEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-05-01
ISBN: 0805063897
Number of pages: 240
Publisher: Holt Paperbacks
Book Reviews of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
Book Review: too biased to be of value
Summary: 1 Stars
Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich is billed as being, "[i]instantly acclaimed for its insight, humor, and passion," and "changing the way America perceives its working poor." The book is constructed of a series of vignettes that chronicle Ehrenriech as she becomes an employee in a succession of, what she describes as, "America's least attractive jobs." (6). The book follows Ehrenreich entering the work force as: a waiter in Florida; a dietary aid (server/dishwasher) at a nursing home, and a maid in Maine; and an associate for Wal-Mart. Throughout, Ehrenreich not only chronicles her work experience, but also her living conditions and relations with those she meets in both situations. While the vignettes Ehrenreich presents are compelling, the book as a whole is very problematic. The problems mainly stem from Ehrenreich's inability to be objective in her observations, as well as from her failure to present any substantive alternatives to the free market system she so clearly finds loathsome. Because of this, the book reads more like a polemic screed written by someone oblivious to the Technological Project (or even the most rudimentary economic theory, for that matter), than an informed, objective work searching to find improvements.
Ehrenreich provides us with a bit of her background, "credentials," and modus in the book's forward. A Ph.D. in biology, Ehrenreich states that in order to understand your surroundings you must, "plunge into the everyday chaos of nature, where surprises lurk in the most mundane measurements." (3). Unfortunately, Ehrenreich is not viewing her forays into these workplaces as a scientist would an experiment. Rather, her distinct and clear point of view (hinted at even in the above quote through her use of negatively loaded words such as "plunge" and "lurk") informs all of her thoughts. Even more unfortunately, Ehrenreich does not come to this point of view peripatetically through the experiences that she chronicles in the book, but, instead, begins her experiment with her point of view firmly in place. Because of this any chance of a biased, nuanced account is impossible. Therefore, rather than providing us with what could be an informative and productive document, instead we are presented with something that resembles vaguely anthropological in nature. As such she not only violates basic journalistic principles, but-worse-violates the very scientific principles that one would think a Ph.D. in biology would attempt to adhere to. Thus, while attempting to comment on economics and policy-from an admittedly untrained background-she allows her own predispositions to inform her research rather than viewing her experiment as a Ph.D. in biology should: scientifically and objectively.
Beyond her academic training, Ehrenreich also squarely positions her ideological predisposition before actually entering the "experiment." In the introduction, she relates that her husband "escap[ed]" from his low-paying job "to become an organizer for the Teamsters." (2). While the overarching irony of this statement only becomes apparent after reading the entire book-a book peopled with workers who Ehrenreich portrays as being completely and irrevocably trapped by the "system" with no means of escape. One would assume that this is the same system that her husband did in fact escape from. However, it is troubling even without knowing where Ehrenreich will head. Escaping to become an organizer for the Teamsters, of course, implies just the sort of bounded, non-autonomous existence that Ehrenreich mistakenly views as freedom.
Beyond personal background, in the introduction she also creates a set of rules that largely govern her employment requirements. She states, "I could not, in my search for jobs, fall back on any skill derived from my education or usual work;" "I had to take the highest-paying job that was offered me and do my best to hold it;" "I had to take the cheapest accommodations I could find..." and so forth. This would all be fine enough, except interspersed between these rules is a rather curious declaration: "no Marxist rants." (4). While it would be easy to simply miss this incongruous "rule," amidst the more grounded, experimental ones that surround it, its presence is deeply troubling. The fact that she is not only predisposed to Marxist ideals, but to Marxist rants, makes virtually everything that comes after this statement difficult to take as objective-and this occurs on page four.
What does come after this introduction is basically what you would expect. The author, semi-gamely, tries to immerse herself in low-paying jobs while living in cheap housing. Along the way she consistently reminds us that she is not going into the experiment with a scientifically agnostic point of view. At the beginning of the first vignette, "Serving in Florida," she begins with the words, "Mostly out of laziness." The sentence that follows reads, "...I soon realize...that it's not easy to go from being a consumer, thoughtlessly throwing money around...." (11). So, we find our author is both lazy and profligate. She is also generalizing horribly, by accusing anyone who is not working in these low-paying jobs of being a "thoughtless" consumer. While the author could perhaps be defended from the above observations (though it's difficult to see how), a few pages on in the same chapter, while bemoaning the mandatory drug tests imposed on workers applying for jobs, she states venomously, "...if you want to stack Cheerios boxes or vacuum hotel rooms in chemically fascist America [my italics], you have to be willing to squat down and pee in front of a health worker...." Chemically fascist America? While America certainly must continue to adhere to a rule of law or risk jeopardizing many of its important qualities, making the leap from policing illegal drugs to fascism seems extreme.
The chapters continue apace. Interspersed between references to Mao and describing herself as a hippie, we meet a range of characters who are attempting to survive. Some, like the dishwasher who is accused of stealing, are struggling more than others, and indeed all of the people portrayed are struggling. The nuance of struggle seems to be the most egregious thing that the author misses. While it would be wrong to assume that the conditions or wages are not problematic, it is even more wrong to assume that they are untenable, and it is, frankly, condescending. For instance, the author describes a co-worker's situation at Wal-Mart, who-unfathomably to Ehrenreich-seems to have found a way to find some sort of pride in her situation, and even takes time to praise Ehrenreich's work. Rather than taking this for what it is, Ehrenreich instead indirectly deems this woman, whom Ehrenreich calls Isabelle, as suffering from "inertia." (180). Only it's not Isabelle who Ehrenreich actually describes as being inert-it's Ehrenreich herself. Isabelle is only guilty by proximity. Isabelle has found a way to advance, has found a way to take pride in her work, has found a way to make ends meet, and has found a way to continue. Ehrenreich, cannot comprehend this, and feels that should she herself "stoop" to this level it would only be because of inertia-how else to explain it?
This is not to say that the conditions Ehrenreich describes are satisfactory or that they should not be examined-in a scholarly, unbiased manner-in order to find solutions. Certainly Ehrenreich is a compelling writer, and did indeed leave behind a far more affluent life, for a time, while she took these low-paying jobs. It is also not to say that what the author describes is not extremely troubling. What is more troubling, however, is the Ehrenreich offers no solutions, nor even suggestions. In the "Evaluation" chapter which closes the book, she presents economic theory (via interviews) as contrasting with her experiential findings. The fact that wages have increased and that poverty levels have decreased are interpreted by Ehrenreich to be as result of faulty data or outmoded systems of discovery. Still, this does not mollify her, and rather than seeing this as at least some hint that the system is not completely flawed, she suggests-as means of solution-that in order to change the system, it will take us as a country to feel "shame." (221). The problem, of course, is that most of us are too busy working within the system-some succeeding, some failing, some just making it-to take the time out to feel the shame. They don't have time to think about shame because many of them believe that the system does provide a way to advance.
In fact, Ehrenreich herself does, grudgingly, concede that in at least one of her jobs-had she stayed long enough-she could have begun earning enough to actually save money, and thus improve her situation. So, while Ehrenreich clearly sees that there is room to advance in the system, she still deems the system a failure. How to explain this? Perhaps there is some explanation in the description of the author's father near the beginning of the book:
My father...managed to pull himself, and us with him, up from the mile-deep copper mines of Butte to the leafy suburbs of the Northeast, ascending from boiler makers to martinis before booze beat out ambition. (18).
It's as if Ehrenreich believes that there is a distinct connection between her father's ability to pull himself out of the type of situations that she chronicles as being so hopelessly insurmountable in Nickel and Dimed and an even worse situation: alcoholism. Certainly I am no more qualified to perform psychotherapy on Ehrenreich as she is to offer economic advice, but the fact that she relates this information about her father at the beginning of a book, and then provides no possible better alternative or solution (beyond shame), makes one wonder whether or not Ehrenreich is uncomfortable with the possibility that this system-flawed, certainly, but better than any other-is in fact the correct one. Perhaps, she feels that by not accepting the Technological Project; by insisting that there must be some alternative to a system that promotes autonomy and that has a rule of law (even a rule of law so "fascistic" that it mandates drug testing), that there would be less suffering. Unfortunately, the facts are against her. As productivity rises, standards of living rise, and suffering decreases. The process can be a painful one, and can leave good people stranded, however the alternative (an alternative that Ehrenreich hints at without ever stating) of some form of non-autonomous system (fascism, for instance) leads to far, far more suffering.
Summary of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
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. But how can anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 to $7 an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich moved from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, taking the cheapest lodgings available and accepting work as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing-home aide, and Wal-Mart salesperson. She soon discovered that even the "lowliest" occupations require exhausting mental and physical efforts. And one job is not enough; you need at least two if you intend to live indoors.
Nickel and Dimed reveals low-wage America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity -- a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate strategies for survival. Instantly acclaimed for its insight, humor, and passion, this book is changing the way America perceives its working poor.
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. But how can anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 to $7 an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich moved from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, taking the cheapest lodgings available and accepting work as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing-home aide, and Wal-Mart salesperson. She soon discovered that even the "lowliest" occupations require exhausting mental and physical efforts. And one job is not enough; you need at least two if you intend to live indoors.
Nickel and Dimed reveals low-wage America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity -- a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate strategies for survival. Instantly acclaimed for its insight, humor, and passion, this book is changing the way America perceives its working poor.
Essayist and cultural critic Barbara Ehrenreich has always specialized in turning received wisdom on its head with intelligence, clarity, and verve. With some 12 million women being pushed into the labor market by welfare reform, she decided to do some good old-fashioned journalism and find out just how they were going to survive on the wages of the unskilled--at $6 to $7 an hour, only half of what is considered a living wage. So she did what millions of Americans do, she looked for a job and a place to live, worked that job, and tried to make ends meet.
As a waitress in Florida, where her name is suddenly transposed to "girl," trailer trash becomes a demographic category to aspire to with rent at $675 per month. In Maine, where she ends up working as both a cleaning woman and a nursing home assistant, she must first fill out endless pre-employment tests with trick questions such as "Some people work better when they're a little bit high." In Minnesota, she works at Wal-Mart under the repressive surveillance of men and women whose job it is to monitor her behavior for signs of sloth, theft, drug abuse, or worse. She even gets to experience the humiliation of the urine test.
So, do the poor have survival strategies unknown to the middle class? And did Ehrenreich feel the "bracing psychological effects of getting out of the house, as promised by the wonks who brought us welfare reform?" Nah. Even in her best-case scenario, with all the advantages of education, health, a car, and money for first month's rent, she has to work two jobs, seven days a week, and still almost winds up in a shelter. As Ehrenreich points out with her potent combination of humor and outrage, the laws of supply and demand have been reversed. Rental prices skyrocket, but wages never rise. Rather, jobs are so cheap as measured by the pay that workers are encouraged to take as many as they can. Behind those trademark Wal-Mart vests, it turns out, are the borderline homeless. With her characteristic wry wit and her unabashedly liberal bent, Ehrenreich brings the invisible poor out of hiding and, in the process, the world they inhabit--where civil liberties are often ignored and hard work fails to live up to its reputation as the ticket out of poverty. --Lesley Reed
Economics Books
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