Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
by Barbara Ehrenreich
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Book Summary Information
Author: Barbara EhrenreichEdition: Paperback
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: It IS Realistic!
Summary: 5 Stars
This was me! For those who reviewed the book and said that Ehrenreich was "unrealistic", I'm going to share my story. Several years ago my ex-boyfriend and I could have been in the book; we were each working a full-time job and he also had TWO part-time jobs at the same time (one after his full-time job and another on the weekends). Our jobs were in electronic sales at a big chain store and telemarketing which at the time paid $7.50 an hour. Yet we were still unable to make ends meet. After rent on our shoebox-efficieny apartment and utility bills, quarters for laundry and bus fare (we couldn't even afford a car! And even if we could have, we would not have been able to afford insurance AND gas.), we had hardly any money leftover for groceries and certainly NO money leftover for luxuries such as new clothes and new shoes (we did shop at thrift stores, but only when we really needed more outfits). After we ran out of selling our CDs, books, and magazines, which we sold for bus fare to be able to get to and from jobs, we resorted to selling plasma which paid $20 at the time and was enough for two weeks worth of groceries. Everything else that we owned, a mattress on the floor, linen, and kitchen supplies (which we deemed were the necessities) had all been purchased at a Goodwill also with the help of a friend of mine who worked there and used his employee discount for us.
I'm sure people would have thought my ex-boyfriend and I were lazy and "slackers" but we were working so HARD and pinching pennies and we couldn't understand why we still couldn't afford a nicer apartment, a car, decent clothes and to eat well. I shudder to think how much more of a hell our lives would have been if we had had children to boot!
Unfortunately the strain of our financial situation did our relatonship in. He moved back in with his single mother and I moved back in with my grandparents as we went our seperate ways. Sadly, living with my grandparents rent-free didn't really make my life easier. I was still working a minimum wage job and trying to save money while also helping them with expenses. Then the worst thing happened, I got another job in telemarketing and lost my voice completely two weeks into training which was followed by strep throat; this latest for a month! Needless to say I lost my job because I couldn't even make it through training. Of course I had no health insurance either. I realized there was no way I could ever afford a car to get a better job off the bus route or to move out into my own apartment anytime soon. Finally, I made the desperate decison to enlist in the Army.
My life is completely different now that I am out of the Army and a civilian again. From the Army I gained skills and knowledge in a specific field which are marketable and thanks to the Army College Fund and Montgomery G.I. Bill I am currently enrolled in a graduate program. Finanically I am better off now then I ever was in my life, but I never forget for a minute that I can end up again where I was before the Army, (selling plasma for food)...even with a Master's degree. Unfortunately there are countless reasons why some people would not be able to make the same decisions to join the military. For many people that is not an option. So where does that leave them?
I LOVE this book because I think it IS realistic and dead-on and I should know, I have lived it!
Summary of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
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
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.
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