A middle aged journalist, Barbara Ehrenreich notes the obvious gap in coverage on a whole segment of society, the poverty level wage earners (or the working poor). She chooses to go undercover (a la old school) and see if without her degrees (including a Phd.), and without her ‘luck’ and experience in past jobs- with that off the record, where would she be? Would it even be possible for her to survive financially? She does nothing but strip herself from her entitled position as a middle class white woman and education to see if she can survive on what millions of Americans must survive on. The American working poor, who give their sweat and tears to work full-time, seven days a week, for the whole year earning a poverty-level wage in aim to survive. Barbara Ehrenreich decides that now is the time to find out so she strips her resume of many of her advantages and God knows what will happen.
Accepting jobs from working at Walmart, to housecleaning, and witnessing she is shocked to find that each of these jobs require her to put herself fully into it in order to keep up with the flow, and keep her job. The jobs all have things in common, they are high intensity, high stress, and demanding and yet they are minimum wage or barely over that. She chooses 3 different cites where she is going to try and make it work- and she soon finds out that just one job is not enough, if she wants a roof above her head she’ll have to be working at least two demanding jobs at a time. She soon realises that she has discarded, along with her privilege so much of where her securities were resting. No longer covered for medical expenses, dental mishaps or even just knowing that she could fall back on her education or rely on wealthy family members for a difficult season- the stress of just getting by is so much more than numbers, it is the heavy weight that one can only understand if one has been in that spot.
I strongly believe that every single person should read Nickel and Dimed, especially those born into privilege in our society, or who have been granted privilege now. What would we do if there were no wealthy friends or family to turn to? How would our problems be solved? What kind of weight does that place on an individual, and stress? This would be especially difficult if the person has dependents to provide for. What about childcare? And think about it all in light of covid and the complications that would bring as well. This book crosses all the barriers and brings up issues that we need to change. The working poor is responsible for bearing so much weight in support of the upper and middle class’ benefits, but generally they aren’t even seen for the work done, but just as a job, a label. Barbara brings the reader into the humanity of the working poor, telling a truth about where our nation is in hopes that the reader won’t be able to forget even if we aim to. I highly recommend this book, Nickel and Dimed for perspective, awareness and learning a little more about empathy.
Nickel and Dimed is A New York Times bestseller, and Notable Book of the year but besides all those awards it is really- a must read.
ISBN:9780805088380
Author: Barbara Ehrenreich
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Subject: Poverty, Economic Conditions, Labor & Industrial Relations – General
Working poor – United States
Poverty – United States
Copyright: 2008
Publication Date: June 2008