Book Review: Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America (Barbara Ehrenreich)

by Alex D

Nickel and Dimed was a fantastic book that examined America’s hard working, lower class citizens. Ehrenreich gave you a behind the scenes look, at the problems the victims of poverty were facing. While undertaking average working jobs, her once article for a newspaper began to unfold into a true novel. Inspired by a former boss Ehrenreich altered her social class to become one of America's millions of low-wage workers. She accomplished this by temporarily relinquishing her education (a PhD in biology), her home, and her status as a writer in exchange for an identity as a minimally skilled homemaker reentering the workforce. Her goal was to illuminate the lives of the working poor, especially the 4 million women forced into the labor market by welfare reform.

Ehrenreich's quest brought her to Florida, Maine, and Minnesota. She stayed 1 month in each of these locations and, during that time, attempted to earn enough to cover her lodging, food, and other living expenses. She worked in a variety of positions, including waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, and sales clerk. Though a White, physically fit, native English speaker with no dependents, Ehrenreich swiftly learned that the odds of becoming financially secure were not in her favor. In fact, working full time at one job never provided enough income to cover her modest expenses. As a result, she was repeatedly forced to juggle the requirements of two jobs. This was especially difficult since the majority of her positions were physically taxing.

Millions of Americans suffer daily trying to make ends meet. Ehrenreich’s book forces people to acknowledge the average workers struggle. For example, she points out that renting an apartment is hindered by the need to provide a security deposit and, in most cases, the first and last months' rent. Because low-wage workers often cannot afford the up-front costs of living in an apartment, they are forced to live with family or friends, in their cars, or in motels.

Ironically, the monthly rents in motels are usually more expensive than the monthly rents of apartments. Even the organizations whose purpose is to help those in financial need are not sensitive to the circumstances of low-wage earners. As evidence, Ehrenreich discusses the many hours it took her to secure subsidized food because most of the food banks that provided this service were only open from 9 to 5. When she finally obtained some food supplies, they were filled with mostly empty calories or difficult to store without a refrigerator (an item she did not have in one of the cities she visited).

Ehrenreich successfully demonstrates that even if you are willing to sacrifice your health, hold two jobs, and work 7 days a week, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is an impossible task for most. Through the narrative, the reader quickly realizes that the financially privileged take for granted many things that are considered luxuries to low-wage earners. Health insurance, time off from work, a secure place to live, reliable transportation, and respect in the workplace are all things that low-wage earners struggle to attain.

In short, Nickel and Dimed provides a painful but necessary glimpse into our culture's proclivity toward classism, sexism, and racism and gives pause to those who believe in the Puritan work ethic.

Although Nickel and Dimed is a very well written, readable book, there are some shortcomings. At times Ehrenreich appears insensitive to the very individuals she writes about. This is portrayed most clearly in her contradiction toward overweight Midwesterners. Expressing her frustrations with the overweight customers of the ladies department of a Wal-Mart, she writes, "... we [sales clerks] live with the fear of being crushed by some wide-body as she hurtles through the narrow passage from Faded Glory to woman size, lost in fantasies involving svelte Kathie Lee sheaths" (p. 166).

Ehrenreich also has strong opinions about hiring a maid to clean her home, noting that she finds the idea "repugnant" and morally wrong. Why is it not reprehensible for middle-class families to pay others to wash the car, mow the lawn, paint the house, or have meals prepared and served in restaurants? Are some kinds of service work naturally more cruel or less dignified than others?

Nickel and Dimed is an insightful, thought provoking book. Ehrenreich does a great job of weaving data throughout the telling of her story through the use of footnotes, which complement her narrative by passing on an incredible amount of realistic information. The end of this novel summarizes, Ehrenreich's individual experiences within a larger social context.

I loved this book because it really did examine first-hand what is really going on in America. It showed how Americans are trying to provide not only for themselves, but to rise above poverty and change the downside of America’s prosperity. Nickel and Dimed was a page-turner, simply changing one’s stereotype of America’s struggling lower class.

I learned from this book that a college education is truly needed. Anyone can take away your job, your money, your house, your food but an education is something that no one can take away from you. Without an education I feel that you too, will be apart of American poverty.