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Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
Audiobook8 hours

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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About this audiobook

This engrossing piece of undercover reportage is a New York Times best-seller. With nearly a million copies in print, Nickel and Dimed is a modern classic that deftly portrays the plight of America's working-class poor. Author Barbara Ehrenreich decides to see if she can scratch out a comfortable living in blue-collar America. What she discovers is a culture of desperation, where workers often take multiple low-paying jobs just to keep a roof overhead.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateAug 13, 2004
ISBN9781436101462
Author

Barbara Ehrenreich

Barbara Ehrenreich (1941-2022) was a bestselling author and political activist, whose more than a dozen books included Nickel and Dimed, which the New York Times described as "a classic in social justice literature", Bait and Switch, Bright-sided, This Land Is Their Land, Dancing In the Streets, and Blood Rites. An award-winning journalist, she frequently contributed to Harper's, The Nation, The New York Times, and TIME magazine. Ehrenreich was born in Butte, Montana, when it was still a bustling mining town. She studied physics at Reed College, and earned a Ph.D. in cell biology from Rockefeller University. Rather than going into laboratory work, she got involved in activism, and soon devoted herself to writing her innovative journalism.

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Reviews for Nickel and Dimed

Rating: 3.746192893401015 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A recent conversation about homelessness has prompted me to consider the role that chance plays in our financial well-being. While it is certainly true that there are many factors within our control, from consumption habits to work ethic, I also believe that there are many factors outside of our control. We none of us can choose the family, community, or racial/ethnic/economic group into which we are born - all factors that strongly influence our chances of success. Likewise, we can neither predict, nor adequately prepare it would seem, for those unexpected disasters, whether medical or natural, which can destroy a lifetime of hard work in the blink of an eye.These reflections reminded me in turn, of Barbara Ehrenreich's excellent book, Nickel and Dimed, in which the author attempts to discover how well she herself could live working unskilled, minimum-wage jobs. Divided into three main sections, the book follows Ehrenreich as she works as a waitress in Florida, a nursing-home aide and cleaning woman in Maine, and a Wal-mart associate in Minnesota. She quickly discovers that she is barely able to live adequately on what she earns, even when working two jobs, and concludes that the conservative mantra of advancement and betterment through hard work is largely an illusion for the working poor.I have seen Ehrenreich criticized from both right and left, with reviewers accusing her of everything from advancing a socialist agenda to patronizing the working class with her "poverty tourism." As someone who thinks that socialized medicine and education would be of great benefit to our society, I am not unduly disturbed by the former. As for the latter, I am not sure just what it is people would have Ehrenreich do... If she were to live on the street, or temporarily "adopt" a few children, would her experience then seem more authentic? She acknowledges who she is, the privileges that she enjoys, and attempts to learn something about those less fortunate than herself. For that, I think she should be commended.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Is is the best written book? No. But it is one of the only books that actually examines modern working-class life. I read it all in one sitting and walked about furious, sad and depressed about the future.
    Good times!

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I while back I read Deer Hunting With Jesus. This is kind of like that, with a different voice, that of a middle-aged woman who works (undercover, temporarily) in low-wage jobs.In fact you may well have heard this book mentioned in the media. Published in 2001, I've seen it referenced and quoted numerous times and always meant to read it. Although I knew what it was about and what the message was, it's was still well worth the read. This is down to the brilliant descriptions. I really felt like I was immersed in these grimy worlds of America's underclass. Unfortunately, the book hasn't dated at all. Things only became worse in America. Here in Australia, as the minimum wage is currently being looked at with a view to lowering it -- yes, lowering it -- I wish to hell more people in this country would read this book. I wonder if anyone has sent a copy to Abbott? Who thinks lowering the minimum wage will 'get unemployed youth into work'? Who?After Smile Or Die, I think Barbara Ehrenreich is now officially my favourite writer.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Wow! The entire book was incredible- but the last chapter literally brought me to tears. As a highly educated, single mom of two adult children… with a high earning professional career… I KNOW my kids and I would not be where we are today without a financial support network (my parents) there to help us along the way. Even when I think I have worked hard and struggled… I feel certain I don’t have any idea what REAL struggle is! This book illuminates this in a way that confirms my own feelings and has compelled me to jump into action to help those referred to as the “working poor” in this book. This is an American crisis that we should all feel some responsibility for eradicating ….especially those of us who have been fortunate enough to be spared from it!!
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    not a great book. very hypocritical. easy read and interesting insights into being a house cleaner, server, and walmart employee (this part i thought was the most interesting). but she goes off about drug users/addicts and then later on goes off about how she can't find work because she can't pass a drug test. she goes into minute details of food/homeware costs, yet never mentions spending $50 for a bag of weed!

    interesting figure - "In 1990, the federal government spent $11.7 million to test 29,000 federal employees. Since only 153 tested positive, the cost of detecting a single drug user was $77,000."
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I'd read bits and pieces before, but this is one worth reading straight through. These are the stories that need to be told again and again until something changes. Brought up memories of my time working as a nursing assistant in a Tucson nursing home, waiting tables (badly), temp agency jobs, etc. Shelve it next to George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I read this about 10 years ago, and then saw the play based on her work. At the time, I thought her work was brilliant. Of course, I was fresh out of college, full to the brim with ideas about life, none of which had any touch with reality. Now, with ten years of real world experience in my brain, I realize Ehrenreich's work is highly flawed and lopsided. The main thing that bothered me, was while congratulating herself on "living like the poor" she refused to live like them! She had to have a car and bought herself wine and $30 khaki pants. She refused jobs because she was "tired" or didn't want to do them. She constantly complained about not having TV or AC or books. She also seemed to think all supervisors were evil, as if they sat around calculating ways to dehumanize their workers. It never occurred to her the supervisors were in a similar position or to offer any kindness to them. She also complained ALL the time about drug tests. This shows a complete naivety when it comes to human nature. In the end, I think Ehrenreich's idea was a good one, but she executed it all wrong and spent to much time complaining about her lack of comforts and how hard things were, instead of trying to actually understand what poverty is.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I found her deep dive into the mundane world of cheap labor refreshing. There's that sense of emptiness and futility that I see her walk through. Sure, she can walk away at the end, but she did her job as a reporter and came away with it knowing there's so many good people out there working their asses off and I think she appreciated meeting them and working alongside them.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Here is an in the trenches report on trying to make it in America on inadequate wages for essential work. Wake up call for $15.00 hourly wage.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Fairly interesting and insightful, but no major revelations. I did work as a hostess and retail associate - never for a living, but I worked with others who did. Wondering if a more recent, similar work would provide a better perspective, as this book is now about 12 years old and the climate may have changed a little.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Like others wrote, I find this book comes across as offensive, insulting.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Although times and economic conditions have changed since Ehrenreich's experiment (it is hard to imagine that any place suffers from a labor shortage these days), the principles illustrated here stand up.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I liked this book because it showed a slice of life many live in and many never see.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I think this is an important book, many of the trends she’s discussing have only gotten worse in the past 20 years to the point that no where is affordable to live in this country, medical bankruptcies are 2/3 of all bankruptcies, credit card debt is ballooning, etc. There are times that she sounds a bit smug about her education but I think it honestly helps make her case, that even well-educated people struggle in these low wage jobs, that even with a car and $1,000 in her pocket she struggles to find housing, that she’s seen as entirely unremarkable by her bosses. It’s a good read
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Everyone should read this book. I prefer her essays though. I sometimes found her daily reality of having to constantly track her expenses/wages and her accounting of the repetitive nature of her work a tedious read (but of course reflective of the life of a low-rage worker--all to serve her point).
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    "Nickel and Dimed" is a first-hand account of professor Ehrenreich's undercover life as a working class woman – waitressing, housecleaning and working at Walmart. With candor, Ehrenreich chronicles her journey of renting a place, finding a job and trying to balance the books at the end of the month. Set in the US, it is not, as you'd expect, an easy journey by any means.Ehrenreich writes candidly. She's very aware of her relative privilege, readily admits her failures in trying to balance her books, and even gives us a detailed account of herself when she starts losing it towards the end of several jobs. As such, the book is both eye-opening and a thoroughly enjoyable read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    An intimate analysis of the working poor told from the point-of-view of an undercover journalist who attempted to live and work for minimum wages in three locations in the United States for three months with minimal assistance. A must read for anyone who has either worked for minimum wage or who has employed someone who does.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    No big surprises here, but still a horrifying look at the problem of the working poor in America. After going "undercover" as an unskilled worker, Ehrenreich discovers that it's just about impossible to pay for housing on $6 to $7 an hour. Ehrenreich is careful to point that her circumstances--having money in the bank to go back to, being able to pay for a doctor when she contracts a skin ailment rather than having to rely on the emergency room, being able to call it quits before she's forced to live in her car, and even having a car to begin with--make her experiences very different from those of people who don't have such resources to fall back on. The epilogue was particularly valuable in providing a broader economic and sociological perspective on why wages don't rise even when there's a shortage of unskilled labor, why the underpaid don't unionize, why people who are working full time or more are still living in poverty, and why poverty is so easily ignored by the better-off.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This book is a good expose on the myth that the United States is a classless society, an assertion so blind that it would be comical if it were not one of the major myths perpetrated by corporate media. In fact, the newspaper series in the New York Times a couple of years ago which purported to be about class spent a good three quarters of the time trying to maintain this myth.Barbara Ehrenreich does her best to try to survive on entry-level jobs, and finds herself struggling severely. Eye opening on the level of Fast Food Nation. I read it for university. It surprised me only because I didn't grow up in a household that actually lived like Ms. Ehrenreich, which a good majority of the country does. If you didn't, you might catch some insight, but nothing more than you would working at a similar job and trying to pay rent.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    (Quibble: I was all of seven years old when welfare reform was instituted, so many of Ehrenreich's attacks against the reform went completely over my head. I couldn't recall anything about this legislation while reading.)

    While interesting, Ehrenreich's account never really connected with me on any level.
    Basically, the book covers three points: 1) minimum wage sucks, 2) businesses sucks, and 3) welfare reform sucks.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Way back in 1998, author Ehrenreich decided to go and try and live like the lower class did. Allowing herself a car and a $1000 in startup money, she went out to land a working class job- waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing home aide, Walmart associate- and survive on the wages. She discovered how wages didn’t cover rents, or much food, or any way to relax. Most people were working two or even three jobs just to survive. Most often, there was no affordable housing near any source of employment, and there was no affordable transportation. If a worker got ill or injured, they had no option other than to just keep on working. The working class can’t afford to miss work, even if the doctor visit was covered by insurance- and it usually wasn’t back then. Affordable child care simply didn’t exist. Of course, she wasn’t stuck in this situation. She could tap out at any time and go back to her normal existence. She didn’t live with the knowledge that she would have to live this existence for the rest of her life, with no vacation, no retirement. So she didn’t develop the despair and depression that plagues so many working class people. But she noticed it and reported it. Many people have torn down the author for ‘slumming’, because she could leave, but I feel she wrote an important book because many people were unaware of the situation the working class faced. One person could scarcely cover the entire problem. I did find some things irritating- her fear that she wouldn’t be able to ‘pass’ as a working class person, that her education would out her. Guess what- not every working class person speaks poorly, and there are such things as libraries that allow even the poor to read. One thing that I feel is important about this book is that it showed to the upper classes (if they choose to read it- hah) that even one of their own, a hard working educated woman, couldn’t make it in the system. So much for calling the working class ‘lazy’!These days, there is a lot more awareness of the problems of the working poor- but I’m not sure there is any more being done about it. Rents are higher, gasoline costs are higher, but wages are the same as they were 20 years ago. There are still huge numbers of people without health insurance. Perhaps it’s time for a reissue of this book, with an update? Five stars.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    A journalist tries to live off of poverty-low wage jobs. She creates the identity that her kids are grown and she's just entering the work force after being a stay at home mom.
    She didn't use resume's, but she did start out with cash savings and moved to 3 states to do this experiment.
    Part of the book was mundane and there aren't any ground shattering discoveries if any discoveries at all. What did she prove?
    I think the author believes everyone should be paid the same wage. What the woman may not know, understand or care about is, some people are quite satisfied to "settle" and never aspire to anything more than low wage jobs.
    They may gripe and complain or play the victim, (some don't), but they don't aspire or attempt to do more to do better.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I find this book to be incredibly offensive. It's written by the upper middle class for the upper middle class and comes off as condescending, in my opinion. (This, of course, makes me wonder how our studies of "third world" women would appear to them. We are dabblers in their world, can we really understand?)

    Ehrenreich's refusal to give up her entitlements (and indeed her endowments) makes it so she doesn't have to truly experience poverty. She discusses the poverty line in the Evaluation but she only complains that it measures something arbitrary; she doesn't note that what it does not measure are exactly those things that enabled her to walk out of a job when she was upset. She doesn't need the salary, she has other things to fall back on.

    From personal experience I have to say that she got quite a bit wrong. In the Introduction she wonders why when she comes out to some of her coworkers they are neither surprised nor upset, instead only ask her if this means she won't be returning for her next shift. She thinks this is because (a) writing is thought of as a hobby, not a job and (b) that she wasn't successful at fooling them. What she does not ever realize is that they ask that question because that is their primary concern. Someone is going to have to cover that shift and it could be them. It could be a godsend because they need the extra money or it could be a disaster because switched shifts means switched transportation/childcare/and a host of other issues Ehrenreich doesn't seem to acknowledge until the Evaluation.

    I've worked some of those jobs. I've been told that bathroom breaks take me away from my desk and therefore interfere with the work of the business. I've stood on my feet for 11 hour shifts snatching a dinner break on my feet in a corner of the crowded back room. I know that single mother who supports herself and three children on what she makes from working at a convenience store and a gas station and who faces financial ruin if she has to take time off because her middle son is sick. I've had my purse searched every day at the end of every shift despite my years of good work. I've been "honey" and "sweetie" and paid more than I could afford in order to meet a frequently changing dress code.

    One thing that particularly bothered me was when Ehrenreich did not stand up for George, the dishwasher who was accused of theft. She compares working at this restaurant to being in a POW camp and uses that to excuse her lack of courage. She's wrong. The fault was hers, not the job. Plenty of us have seen our coworkers falsely accused and plenty of us have stood up. Don't blame the poor and the oppressed for your own failings.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    An informative read as the nation discusses fair wages, equality, and sometimes struggling to just get by. As someone who works two jobs, I identify with these women, who do everything they can to make a dent and keep moving forward.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Despite the fact that I've been very lucky in a lot of ways, I could write about my experiences as a waitress, a barista, and an overnight worker in a large corporation like Wal-Mart, and it would sound like I plagiarized every bit of Ehrenreich's book. This is perhaps why I am so frustrated when I engage in conversations with others about this social, economic, and moral problem; the willing ignorance of the affluent and the sheer invisibility of the working poor aren't being addressed. This predates the Occupy Wall Street movement, and it's as if you're watching the dominoes set up and getting ready to start their fall.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Well written, smart, and brings the stark reality of the working poor to the surface. It addresses the common misconception of the poor, welfare recipients, and immigrants. It brings in the history of how the US dealt with the poor and offers insight into the discussion.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I had mixed feelings about this book.I enjoyed reading the experiences.She annoyed me when she talked about the advantages for the Client of dealing with an agency for maids, but not getting the advantages for the maid of working through an agency. Let me explain it when you work through an agency the agency takes care of taxes, insurance, getting the clients, billing the clients, and collecting from the clients. On your own you have to find the clients, get them to pay you and if you break something the client can come after you to replace it. I remember someone being self employed and having a terrible time getting people to pay on time or at all. He found it very hard to be the tough, mean bill collector he sometimes needed to be.I ended up skimming through the Evaluation. She did go into the difficulties of trying to find another job. But I was annoyed when she was talking about why workers don't stand up and fight for better pay. For her it was a lark to try to bring up the Union idea at Wal-Mart. She didn't have to worry, she was leaving anyway. But when you are barely getting by the fear of making waves and getting fired is very real. If she got fired she could just go back to her old live, but the others could end up homeless or unable to feed their children. She had a safety net, the working poor do not.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Ehrenreich posed as a waitress in order to discover how the working poor in America cope financially. I expected to find an examination of the cost of living, but instead found the flip-side: the difficulty of making a living, earning an income.As with any such journalism of this type, it’s hard to truly capture the desperation of not having the luxury of back-up, knowing that, at any time, you can return to another life, job, and bank account. Ehrenreich does acknowledge these limitations.A fine effort.3½ stars
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    In 1998, writer Barbara Ehrenreich was looking for a new story to write for Harper's and was having lunch with the editor when the conversation turned to the topic of people going off welfare and going into the workforce and having trouble making it. She said someone should go undercover and investigate this and he said why don't you. So soon she is spending about a month in different locations trying to live off of $6 to $7 dollars. From Florida to Maine to Minnesota, she worked as a waitress, a hotel maid, a house cleaner, a nursing home aide, and a Wal-Mart salesperson.In Florida, she went to Key West and tried to get a job working as a hotel worker but that backfired and she instead got a job waiting tables instead of at a hotel chain's restaurant. Her first place was a small rented efficiency that went for $500 which was cheaper and nicer than the trailer she looked at, but it was also a forty-five-minute drive to the eventual job she would get. She learned quickly that the want ads are a bad way to find a job in that employers place them and take applications constantly because there is a high turnover rate. So there may be no opening right then, but there may be one soon. She had waited tables in her youth, but it was hard getting back into the swing of things. She has to learn how to use a computerized screen for ordering food.And she learns a lot about her co-workers, such as Gail who is living in a flop house and paying $250 a month with a male friend who is now hitting on her and driving her crazy but with the rent so cheap how can she go elsewhere? And Claude the Haitian cook who is desperate to get out of the two-room apartment he shares with his girlfriend and two other people. Or Tina who is living with her husband at the Days Inn and paying $60 a night and Joan who lives in her van. Some of these people end up having to rent a hotel room to live in because they can't pay first and last month's rent at an apartment or trailer. Barbara was able to because she budgeted for it in each city she goes to stay.She ends up taking a second waitressing job at Jerry's and tries at first to hold both jobs but just can't do it, so she keeps the job at Jerry's which is paying more at an average of $7.50 an hour in tips. She also gives up her nice efficiency because the drive is eating up too much in gas money and takes a cheap cramped trailer. The other women she works with either work a second job or has a boyfriend or husband to help make it work. But she still needs a second job herself and takes a housekeeping job at a hotel, which is when things begin to fall apart.In Portland, Maine, she puts out many applications and at Merry Maids (Like at Winn-Dixie in Florida and another job she applied for in Maine) she is asked to take a test. This one is the Accutrac personality test. All these tests are designed to find out whether or not you will steal from the company or do drugs, or turn in someone else who has stolen something. The Accutrac also tries to determine your mental health as well. These tests are a joke and can be easily faked. While waiting to get into her new place the Blue Haven Motel that has a kitchen, she also applies to be a dietary aide at a nursing home on the weekends. This involves feeding the elderly and often those with Alzheimer's their meals. If they do not like what is being served she can make them something else they might like such as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It's a nice job, until one day when things go wrong. At Merry Maids she learns the truth behind the lives of these women and how they will work with a twisted ankle or operate a vacuum cleaner on their back even if they have arthritis or back problems because they need the job and the money, even if it isn't all that much.In Minnesota, she has an impossible time finding a place to stay. The economy is supposed to be good there and jobs are supposed to be plentiful there and she does find a job at Wal-Mart, which she ends up finding out was a mistake and that she should have taken the other job selling plumbing at a hardware store. At first, she stays in the apartment of a friend of a friend until she can find a place, but that place just won't open up and soon she finds herself living in a run down motel with no kitchen much less a fridge and no screen on the window or a fan for the room. There is a massive shortage in Minnesota of housing for a reasonable price. Everyone is living in motels and there is a shortage in places to stay in motels. Working at Wal-Mart changes her into a person that she does not recognize. A very mean, bitch of a woman. And she recognizes this and wonders if it does this to everyone. She's only making $6 and change and she really needs to take a second job, which is made difficult with Wal-Mart changing her schedule. It is here that you really see her dark side. I like to think that it isn't who she really is, but just a facet of her personality put under a microscope and blown up a million times.One thing that bothers me about her is that she is against drug testing, which the ACLU has always been against them. And back when this book was published they were just starting to require it at various jobs. She tries to make it an invasion of privacy and a "the man" is trying to put you in your place and degrade you. I have found that most people who have problems with drug test use drugs. And that is certainly the case here. To work at either Wal-Mart or the hardware store she has to do a drug test and she isn't sure she can pass it because she had smoked a joint in the recent past and marijuana stays in the system a long while. Of course, there are ways to cleanse it out of your system, which she does and passes the test. She also says that she is worried that her Claritin-D would show up as Chrystal Meth. When you go to get a drug test you tell the technician what drugs you are taking and they will know what is in your system. Besides, I took a drug test in 1997 to get my job as a librarian and I was taking Claritin and the woman told me none of my allergy medicines would have any effect on the test. So she really had nothing to worry about on that front.What else bothered me was some of her racist remarks. She refers to those who live in the Southwest as Chicanos. And she bitches about not being able to go to certain California towns because the Hispanics have hogged all the low wage jobs and all the cheap places to live. It's not a pretty side to her.That being said, she made some very valid points about how we measure poverty. Poverty has always been measured according to how much food costs, but these days half of your pay can go toward your home, apartment, or another dwelling place. They are constantly in danger of being homeless or ending up in a motel if they are lucky. And some of these places know that they can get someone else to replace you easily and they let you know it, so you feel compelled to do whatever they ask and put up with bad working conditions in order to keep the job you so desperately need. While this book was written over fifteen years ago, nothing has really changed. Lots of Wal-Mart workers are on Medicaid and food stamps. People are working more than one job just to barely get by and are not always succeeding. Something needs to change. Maybe that would involve starting with raising the minimum wage. And trying to do something about affordable housing. While Ehrenreich felt as though she did this experiment as a lark and was never in any danger of going hungry (She kept her ATM card for emergencies such as that and anything else.) and she didn't have to worry about feeding anyone else like so many other women do, she does shine a light on an important problem in America today.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Good book. The author's agenda shows through like a spotlight behind tissue paper.