Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America
Ratings115
Average rating3.6
In this now classic work, Barbara Ehrenreich, 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.
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It is a crime that this book is (now) so dated and absolutely nothing has changed.
Although the author mentioned it often, it was still easy to see how her privilege affected some of the outcomes. However, even with that disclaimer, it was a compelling read and a must read for all who complain about the poor.
This author is completely insufferable at every point however I do think this had a good look at the working class and especially at the time it was written was important for how others viewed these jobs and income brackets and I think people who have never had to work low income jobs or grow up poor could benefit from reading this.
Just....just don't act like this insufferable author. That's my take away. Holier than thou, naive, judgmental, vain. Did you guys know that Barbara Ehrenreich is COLLEGE EDUCATED folks?!?!?!?!?!! Step back, we have a college education strolling through. The worst part is when she takes a job as a waitress in Key West but is worried that PEOPLE ARE GOING TO RECOGNIZE HER NAME AND OUT HER. Are you really suggesting that in between all of the scrounging around to put food on the table and find appropriate housing and get through a shift with a little bit of sanity intact, that these people are going to be falling over themselves to recognize a journalist's name/picture and then think to themselves, “this is a trick! A scam! A dirty scallywag, exposing the seedy underside of my lifestyle! Away with you, tramp!”? The sheer GALL of this woman
Anyways can confirm that being poor sucks
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