Nickel and Dimed: Undercover in Low-Wage America Paperback – 5 Aug. 2010

Both England and America have a phenomena know as the working poor, these are people that work one or more jobs yet still cannot make ends meet.This book was written by a journalist investigating what's it like to be a low pay worker in America.The author took various low paying jobs and tried to survive on the wages and had a very tough time.Jobs such as cleaning turn out to be very demanding physically leaving the workers with permanent damage to their bodys. The cleaning company charged $25 per person hour but only pays the worker $6.65 per hour.The high cost of housing and low pay means workers cannot just give up their current job and look for another as they will not be able to pay their rent while looking for a job.Other low pay workers cannot afford health care to fix heath problems, the health problems then cause them to lose their jobs and get even poorer.Poor public transport in many parts of America means if you cannot afford a car you choice of jobs is limited to your local area only making the choice of work for the poor worse.It comes obvious that been poor in America actually traps people when vital needs such as health care and transportation are only for people that can afford it. No wonder social mobility in America is so bad and the poor have decreased in wealth in the last 30 years while the rich have gotten even richer.

This book is full of interesting observations about the underbelly of working America that perhaps we in Britain do not even imagine exists. Novelists like Alison Lurie and Richard Ford have dropped me some literate hints, George Orwell covered similar ground in 'Down and Out in London and Paris' and anyone who has ever worked in catering or been a poor student will go 'uh huh' at some point but 'Nickel and Dimed,' which cost me just one U K penny to buy, really tears the lid off the can marked 'opportunities in the land of opportunity.' China has its problems, privatised higher education for millions with no jobs to go to anyone? Europe seems to have over fattened itself, non-sustainably in some areas and as for everywhere else, well just don't expect America to be any better, unless you have plenty of money of course. I urge you to buy and read this book but for goodness sake don't show it to anyone who works at Wal-Mart, okay?

This book is viewed as an undercover expose to most who will read it but is, in fact, just an account of normal life for many, many more who won't even know that the book was ever published.The author is a writer who decided to live (by working) on minimum wage for a while. She moves state, finds housing, finds a job, settles into a routine then moves on to start again elsewhere.It's an uncomfortable read with a vague feeling of the author staring at humans from a different species - most readers will never have experienced conditions in which low paid workers live and, whilst it's very difficult to admit to, there is an underlying feeling of looking through the bars into a zoo. As she gets to know her coworkers at each company and the group is humanised the authors approach softens - a major breakthrough being the acknowledgement that we all want to be appreciated regardless of money being earned.The author appears to be outraged by the conditions suffered by low paid workers and, as this book is intended to stir up some opinions, then this is entirely appropriate but I'm not quite sure that she should be outraged. How does she think people live on $7 an hour? It's not news that life is impossible on these rates of pay but what is the most engaging element of this book is the insight about the individuals she meets during her travels. Many people generalise the "poor" and these book turns the group into people, promoting an urge to thank waitresses more regularly, smile at check out operators and maybe even just notice maids!I found the authors attitude a little self righteous but have to admire her greatly for going out and finding out what is actually happening rather than just listening to others.A criticism would be that the book was published in 2001 and has not been updated since. There is little reference to welfare available in the states that she visits and I would have been interested to know what the position was then and is now. I feel more reading coming on!This book made me think .... a lot.

I purchased the Picador Modern Classic edition; and am very pleased with it. These editions are compact hardback books - smaller than the average paperback. The print may be too small for some, but I haven't struggled with reading it; and due to the size of these editions, they are easy to carry and read anywhere.

Even through is about a decade old, the experiences Im sure are no different if repeated today in the USA or UK to a similar degree.It opens your mind to something you could always see, always knew was there, but somehow failed to grasp, accept and appreciate.It resonates in the UK with the Zero hour contract that puts all power into the hands of the employer and appears in most cases to be used to keep the workforce subservient (Im sure in limited cases zero hour contracts are great).Highly recommended read.

This book was a comprehensive ethnography about people who are barely getting by. The author became a min wage earner to study the lives of those that society has forgotten. The book was absolutely amazing. A must read for any person concerned about the level of inequality in the US.

De auteur, Barbara Ehrenreich, duikt in de Amerikaanse economie onder daar waar de uurlonen minimaal zijn. Zij probeert uit te vinden of het mogelijk is met dit soort uurloon bij een 40-uursbaan zelfstandig te kunnen leven zonder in geldnood te komen. Tijdens haar onderduik spreekt ze met tijdelijke collega's en managers. Regelmatig loopt zij tegen een muur op wanneer het einde van de maand in zicht komt. huren zijn hoog en een eigen huis is hebben is te duur. Velen zijn dus veroordeeld tot het wonen in motels en pensions waar het leven geen pretje is. Zeker als je ook nog kinderen hebt. Het boek is met vaart geschreven en geeft een goede inkijk in de omstandigheden van de laagst betaalden.

Un estudio de la vida dura de las camareras y limpiadoras realizado por una magnífica escritora que fue capaz de vivir como ellas y con ellas

I very rarely write a review, the minute I finish reading a book, yet this particular master piece simply took my breath away! I want to thank the authoress for actually going under cover as a low wage worker in the US, just to show to the world just how difficult it is for the blue collar hardworking souls to survive! It's truly changed my perspective for life! A must read, indeed!

What can I say about this book? When I started reading it I was as appalled and shocked with the introduction as one might expect, she is going to give up her PH.D high salary lifestyle to go "mingle" with the minimum wage world so she can try to find some secret economy about the poor and than write a book about it? Sounded like a complete waste of time nonetheless demeaning like the poor was s disease that she was going to do research on. However as I got further into the book I knew that my concepts were going to change about her.The longer you stare into the abyss the longer it stares back at you, in chapter 1 of Nickel and Dimed Barbara Ehrenreich author of the book was preparing to set off into an adventure that eventually turns a bit out of hand. Ehrenreich in need of a minimum wage job to start off everything had filled out 22 applicants for jobs and none of them called back leaving the impression that the employers simply put in the advertisement solely as a "filler" to replace the ones that are going to quit or get fired. Having read this first chapter I could tell already this journey of Ehrenreich is going to be a lot more grueling than she signed up for, seeing as how they treat their employees as expendable workers with no skills. Ehrenreich in return had no choice but to accept a job as a waitress, a job that she didn't want to take seeing as how she already was one when she was 18 and did not much enjoy the job, however Ehrenreich soon realizes that the job was more than a job and she soon felt responsible for delivering the food to the customers in need and soon starts to bond with them in her workplace. The accountability for the customers Ehrenreich served soon escalated as she picked up the tab for a customer who spent most of his money on dental surgery wanting them to be happy, Ehrenreich states ""If you seek happiness for yourself you will never find it. Only when you seek happiness for others will it come to you", (20). It's as though this job is starting to grow on her and becoming a part of her very nature and instilling morals in her. After reading the first chapter of this book I am appalled and amazed at this, It reinforces everything of my ideals and philosophy as I believe that working hard and doing manual labor instills great morals and responsibility into a person and trains that person to appreciate things in their life more, not less. Ehrenreich soon finds out that there is no secret economy to the poor and their whole life is horrifying compared to her old one and even now she is well-off than most of her co-workers who are living in trailer parks or in their cars in front of a parking lot. What endows me with adrenaline even more was reading that when Ehrenreich tried to return to her old life to catch up on things, she soon realized she wasn't the same person anymore, the foreshadowing of her life that has been flipped is amazing. How I feel is that these workers are like everyday people and once you get to know them they become a part of you just like everybody else. In the end of all of this Ehrenreich only felt failure, she states "I am in a position to realize, for the first time in many years, that the tear ducts are still there and still capable of doing their job", (48) the thought going through her mind as she quitted both her jobs in a semi-dramatic fashion and soon came into the realization that she was human just as much as anybody else.- Jamie Huynh Review