Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in AmericaOur 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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LibraryThing Review
User Review - Judiex - LibraryThingSo many people say that if people only worked harder, they would be able to afford nice homes, adequate diets, decent schools for their children, and appropriate medical care. In 1999, author Barbara ... Read full review
LibraryThing Review
User Review - AngelaLam - LibraryThingAn 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 ... Read full review
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actual American apartment application associates beginning better break cleaning clothes comes couple course customers decide don't drive drug earn employees example face fact feel fellow finally floor four getting give half hand hard Holly hour it's keep kind kitchen labor ladies least leave less live look low-wage Maids Maine means minutes month morning motel move never night offer once owners parking percent person pick poor probably problem question reason rent reports rules seems shift someone sometimes stand talk tell there's thing told turns usually wages waiting Wal-Mart walk week welfare West woman workers
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Bibliographic information
| Title | Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America Metropolitan Books |
| Author | Barbara Ehrenreich |
| Editor | Barbara Ehrenreich |
| Edition | revised |
| Publisher | Macmillan, 2001 |
| ISBN | 0805063889, 9780805063882 |
| Length | 221 pages |
| Subjects | › › Business & Economics / Economic Conditions Business & Economics / Labor / General Social Science / Poverty & Homelessness |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |