Nickel and dimed - bookrastinating.com

Hardcover, 221 pages

English language

Published 2001 by Metropolitan Books.

ISBN:: 978-0-8050-6388-2
OCLC Number:: 45243324

"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 - could be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper on six to seven dollars an hour?

To find out, Ehrenreich left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered as a woefully inexperienced homemaker returning to the workforce. So began a grueling, hair-raising, and darkly funny odyssey through the underside of working America.".

"Nickel and Dimed reveals low-wage 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 …

"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 - could be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper on six to seven dollars an hour?

To find out, Ehrenreich left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered as a woefully inexperienced homemaker returning to the workforce. So began a grueling, hair-raising, and darkly funny odyssey through the underside of working America.".

"Nickel and Dimed reveals low-wage 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 - quite the same way again."--BOOK JACKET.

27 editions

Rob Warner reviewed Nickel and dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich

Review of 'Nickel and dimed' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Clearly written view of what minimum-wage labor is like, and it's not pretty. Ehrenreich articulates the logistical challenges both of working minimum wage labor jobs and of trying to seek other, better employment. She explains the abasement these workers feel, and how difficult it is for folks in these circumstances to carve out a life.

The brush she painted with seemed a bit too broad--she seemed to characterize all folks in these circumstances as noble, hard-working, upstanding people who haven't gotten a break. Just as the middle and upper classes abound with lazy cretins, so must the working class. Not everyone works hard.

The other problem I had with this book is that she seems to claim that the purchasing public are part of the problem, that by shopping at stores or hiring maids, they help to hold down the working class. How, exactly, would the working class benefit if …

Clearly written view of what minimum-wage labor is like, and it's not pretty. Ehrenreich articulates the logistical challenges both of working minimum wage labor jobs and of trying to seek other, better employment. She explains the abasement these workers feel, and how difficult it is for folks in these circumstances to carve out a life.

The brush she painted with seemed a bit too broad--she seemed to characterize all folks in these circumstances as noble, hard-working, upstanding people who haven't gotten a break. Just as the middle and upper classes abound with lazy cretins, so must the working class. Not everyone works hard.

The other problem I had with this book is that she seems to claim that the purchasing public are part of the problem, that by shopping at stores or hiring maids, they help to hold down the working class. How, exactly, would the working class benefit if I stopped buying things or eating at restaurants?

These quibbles, however, don't detract from the core message that the laboring class doesn't make enough money to live, nor are they treated honorably. Read this book to shape a better view of the humanity that serves in menial jobs. If, after reading this book, you don't tip better and use more care not to scatter items when shopping, your heart is cold indeed.