Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
By Barbara Ehrenreich
Published: 2001
Genre: Social science
Info: Ehrenreich has written Blood Rites and
Fear of Falling, among several other books. She is also a freelance writer for several publications, including
TIME and Harper's.
Synopsis: Ehrenreich steps into the shoes of blue-collar,
minimum wage America in her experiment. Can a working class individual in America really survive, and is there a secret
to this harsh existence?
Analysis: Ehrenreich paints an incredibly bleak picture for the reader. The sheltered among us wonder how anyone
could live in such a way and still find some small satisfaction in his or her life. The reading goes quickly and is fairly interesting.
Ehrenreich's narrative is supplemented with the pertinent statistics in her footnotes. Though I feel she was often a bit facetious,
Ehrenreich does offer some memorable (though cynical) imagery. For instance, she says of her fellow trailer park residents:
"There are not exactly people here but what amounts to canned labor, being preserved between shifts from the heat." I was
amused by her mocking attitude towards her upper-class clientele.
Recommendation: I found this book informative and eye-opening. I have always been raised in a comfortable, middle-class
environment, and though I knew there was some poverty in my area, I never anticipated the extent to which the boundaries reach. I feel a
little shocked that I'd never taken a moment to think about real penury. This is one narrative that every socially responsible person should
read and take to heart.
Ehrenreich attempts her experiment in Florida, Maine, and Minnesota, taking jobs waitressing, housekeeping, and
selling. To allow the reader a peek at a largely invisible segment of our society, she suffers the trials of racial bias
(she's Caucasian), fruitless job searches, and life in trailer parks and motels.
During her stint as a minimum wage employee, Ehrenreich deals with the indignity of ludicrous job interviews and the
terrible realization that no one suspects she has a Ph. D. in biology--nor would they care!
She befriends her coworkers and discovers hardships and inconveniences a typical white-collar worker would never
even think about. How many of us have had to clean strangers' pubic hair out of drains? Do you know the three types of
feces stains? How many of us have known the desperation of working two full-time jobs or the injustice of having no health
benefits?
