Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America
by Barbara Ehrenreich
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Book Summary Information
Author: Barbara EhrenreichNarrator: Christine McMurdo-Wallis
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-07
ISBN: 1419305077
Publisher: Recorded Books
Book Reviews of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America
Book Review: Keep in mind this only one person's (limited) point of view
Summary: 4 Stars
This book about America's working poor is interesting but is only a small window into the lives of these people. The author, naturally, has many advantages over her co-workers and this shows through loud and clear during her experiment. She also has a somewhat elitist attitude towards those she works with and constantly reminds us of her Phd and how "over-qualified" she is for many of these jobs.
No doubt, it will surely be an eye opening book for those who've never had the experience of growing up in this sort of situation (or never getting the opportunity to get out of it). For me it was an all too painful a reminder of my teen years and the horrible job at a fast food joint where I worked double shifts, was often called a peon by management and went home smelling and feeling like I'd been dipped in the fry-o-later all for a measly pittance. Finishing school and taking a few college courses changed the course of my life but many don't have this option (or realize it too late). It's difficult to advance past an entry level job when one needs such luxuries as food and shelter and then if you throw children into the mix things are pretty glum. This book mainly made me sad but there were a few moments of light and genuine human kindness.
However, in the end this book turns out to be just one woman's very limited experiences. I completely agree with her that it is very difficult (near impossible) to get out of the entry level job once you're knee deep in debt or have children and are no longer collecting (or never have) welfare. But I do have issues with her Welfare Reform rants and it is painfully obvious that she is looking at this from an outsiders point of view. She rants at length about the evils of Welfare Reform (and I agree with some points ~ some people just can't make it on their own) but she doesn't once state that some positives can and DO come out of it. It enables (or at least it did in the early/mid 90's) under-educated people with drive and desire to go out and gain a certificate or learn a trade at the state's expense that can be a stepping stone for a life-long career not just a mindless job. Back in the 90's when I was barely out of my teens I could have quit my entry level receptionist's job, had a baby out of wedlock and signed up for welfare. My daycare costs would've been mostly covered (I know someone who paid $12 a week while I paid $150 up until last year), I would've been eligible for discounted housing (called Section 8 in Mass) & free schooling (I would've loved to have been able to learn how to style hair but couldn't afford the classes & would've had to quit my job to attend). Instead I scraped by and slowly took a few college courses which I paid for while slowly gaining on-the-job knowledge and moving up in the ranks. So, while Welfare Reform isn't perfect by any means it also isn't always the big bad evil thing that the author makes it out to be . . . I think she should've interviewed a few more people than the small number she did before she made such one-sided statements to suit her closing arguments in her book and rushing back to her "upper middle class" lifestyle.
Summary of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America
Our sharpest and most original social critic goes "undercover" as an unskilled worker to reveal the dark side of American prosperity.
Millions of Americans work full time, year round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich 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, Ehrenreich 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," 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 int to live indoors.
Nickel and Dimed reveals low-rent America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity -- a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate stratagems for survival. Read it for the smoldering clarity of Ehrenreich'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 -- in quite the same way again.
Millions of Americans work full time, year round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich 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, Ehrenreich 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," 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 int to live indoors.
Nickel and Dimed reveals low-rent America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity -- a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate stratagems for survival. Read it for the smoldering clarity of Ehrenreich'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 -- in quite the same way again.
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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