Diane's Reviews > Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

I read this in honor of Labor Day.

"Nickel and Dimed" has been on my radar for years. It's considered a modern classic in several disciplines, including journalism, sociology and economics. Starting in 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich spent several months working low-wage jobs in different cities around the United States in an attempt to experience what it was like to be one of America's working poor. She wondered how anyone could possibly live on wages available to the unskilled, which at the time was about $7 an hour.

In the spirit of science, she set some rules for herself: First, she couldn't fall back on skills derived from her advanced education; second, she had to try to keep the job and not blow off the work; third, she had to find cheap accommodations in each city. When applying for jobs, she used her real name and she described herself as "a divorced homemaker reentering the workforce after many years." She did not put her Ph.D. on the job application, however, and instead only listed three years of college. She did allow herself the use of a car, and she ruled out homelessness.

"The idea was to spend a month in each setting in see whether I could find a job and earn, in that time, the money to pay a second month's rent. If I was paying rent by the week and ran out of money I would simply declare the project at an end; no shelters or sleeping in cars for me ... So this is not a story of some death-defying 'undercover' adventure. Almost anyone could do what I did -- look for jobs, work those jobs, try to make ends meet. In fact, millions of Americans do it every day, and with a lot less fanfare and dithering."

Barbara started in Key West, Florida, waitressing at two different restaurants. In Portland, Maine, she toiled as a maid. In Minneapolis, Minnesota, she was a "sales associate" at a Wal-Mart. In each place, she worked hard and tried to be a helpful and cheerful coworker. Each job had its share of frustrations, and in each job she got a sense of what it felt like to be an "invisible" worker, sometimes degraded and dehumanized.

Besides finding a job, she also had to find affordable housing, which was difficult even with the small amount of starter money that she allowed herself. And if the housing was affordable, it wasn't necessary safe. She stayed at a weekly rental place in the Minneapolis area that she described as the worst motel in the country, and it cost her $255 a week. It did not have secure windows or a bolt on the door, and she slept anxiously, on high alert, every night she was there.

"Sometime around four in the morning it dawns on me that it's not just that I'm a wimp. Poor women -- perhaps especially single ones and even those who are just temporarily living among the poor for whatever reason -- really do have more to fear than women who have houses with double locks and alarm systems and husbands or dogs. I must have known this theoretically or at least heard it stated, but now for the first time the lesson takes hold."

While the book sounds grim, it was an engrossing read. It was fascinating to read about Barbara's waitress experience, her housecleaning and maid service, and the weeks she spent at Wal-Mart.* I raced through it in a little over a day, impressed with the writing and reporting. I was actually a bit envious and wish I had written it.

After her experiment ended, she wrote an evaluation for herself, and while she gave herself good marks for working hard, she admitted she did not do as well in terms of surviving life in general, such as eating and having a decent place to stay.

"The problem goes behind my personal failings and miscalculations. Something is wrong, very wrong, when a single person in good health, a person who in addition possesses a working car, can barely support herself by the sweat of her brow. You don't need a degree in economics to see that wages are too low and rents too high."

The edition I read was published in 2011, a 10th anniversary reprint, which included a new afterword by the author. She wrote that the situation has become worse for the working poor, especially since the global recession that started in 2008:

"If we want to reduce poverty, we have to stop doing the things that make people poor and keep them that way. Stop underpaying people for the jobs they do. Stop treating working people as potential criminals and let them have the right to organize for better wages and working conditions. Stop the institutional harassment of those who turn to the government for help or find themselves destitute in the streets. Maybe, as so many Americans seem to believe today, we can't afford the kinds of public programs that would genuinely alleviate poverty -- though I would argue otherwise. But at least we should decide, as a bare minimum principle, to stop kicking people when they're down."

There is so much to talk about in this book! I understand why a lot of instructors have made it assigned reading in their classes. It's very discussable and brings up many different issues of poverty, society and economics. I highly recommend it.

Low-wage workers of the world, unite! Or something like that.

*I had waitressing jobs when I was in high school and college, and that work requires so much energy and effort for so little pay that I swore I would never do it again unless circumstances were really dire. Barbara frequently mentioned how grateful she was that her parents worked so hard to help give her a better life, and I felt a similar gratitude to my parents.