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Book Description
Our 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.
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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- Book Details
- English Books
- Rating:
(17)
4 stars 
3 stars 2 stars 1 star - School & Library Binding
- ISBN-10: 1417618582
- ISBN-13: 9781417618583
- Publisher: Rebound by Sagebrush
- Pub date: May 01, 2002
- Also available as: Paperback, Hardcover and Audio CD
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This was a really interesting read. I did learn a lot, although much of the time I found the author's overall attitude highly annoying. Regardless, I will never look at the people in these low wage jobs the same way as I did before. And I will NEVER, EVER hire a cleaning service to clean my home! (y ... Continue
This was a really interesting read. I did learn a lot, although much of the time I found the author's overall attitude highly annoying. Regardless, I will never look at the people in these low wage jobs the same way as I did before. And I will NEVER, EVER hire a cleaning service to clean my home! (yuck!)
America, where your dreams come true? Blah.
In fact, the phenomenon described in this book is a general occurrence in most developed and developing countries. Our society, it seems, is going back to the medieval way, where whose child you are matters a lot more than what you are capable of. ... Continue
America, where your dreams come true? Blah.
In fact, the phenomenon described in this book is a general occurrence in most developed and developing countries. Our society, it seems, is going back to the medieval way, where whose child you are matters a lot more than what you are capable of. Gone are the days when you can work your way up the social ladder purely by the combination of your talent/hard work.
Somehow people from the older generation don't appreciate this change. I still have these debates/arguments with my father occasionally; he thinks the youth today are far less motivated and quite underachieving. Well, including myself. But the way I view it, it is simply much harder to achieve the same magnitude of success now.
Should quit my own complaining here. Let's just say that the author has provided me with some very strong support for my argument. Read the book, and you will be amazed how much America today is different from the old perceived "land of opportunity".
BTW, it is also very interesting to compare this book with "My Freshman Year" by Rebekah Nathan, which is also an "undercover" type book, written by an anthropologist. Just to see how many academic taboos Nathan avoided at all cost were broken by the journalist Ehrenreich.