Nickel And Dimed Sparknotes

In the book Nickel and Dimed: On Not Getting by in America, Barbara Ehrenreich goes undercover to report on the true hardships of being a low wage worker. She starts off her investigation by setting rules for herself. She would keep her car, her reasoning being that no one wants to read a book about someone waiting a bus stop. She would also never go hungry, having an ATM card to prevent that if she could not afford it. Another rule she had made for herself was that she was not allowed to fall back to any skills that she had derived from her usual work. Ehrenreich also states that she does not fit the prototype of a low wage single mother because of her good health, means of transportation, and lack of children. Because she is a native and

white English speaker she decides before hand to avoid certain cities such as New York or L.A. where she states the working class is predominantly non white and she fears she would look strange or desperate if she tried to find a job. She started off living in Key West, Florida where she finds a waitressing position at a small restaurant that she calls Jerry's.

She soon finds out that the job is more difficult than she had originally thought it would be. She quickly discovers that she needs to get another job, and she takes a position as a housekeeper. After a day she decides it is too much and quits. the next city she moves to next is Portland, Maine where she acquires two jobs, one as a maid, and the other working in a nursing home. Ehrenreich notes how she thought it odd that she was given so much responsibility at the nursing home even with her lack of previous experience in that area. After Portland she moves to Minnesota and begins a job at a Walmart in Minneapolis. She ends up living in a motel for the entirety of her time there, not being able to find an affordable place to live. She concludes that there is almost no way to be working a minimum wage job with no other sources of income and also be able to afford a deposit for an apartment. Overall she states that she thinks she did exactly average at all of these jobs, and she decides if the workers began to overachieve management would find ways to use that against

them.
I have very mixed feelings about this book.

I think before Ehrenreich first began the experiment she assumed that with her previous education she would quickly be able to grasp any additional information she learned at a new occupation quite simply. She seemed to have an arrogance to the way she talked about the lower class, which is expected given she had never experienced anything like this before. At first she didn’t seem to understand that she really needed to be watching what she spent her money on. She got a job inconveniently located from where she was residing, making her spend unnecessary money on gas, while she was also buying herself 30 dollar pants stating that it was “necessary”. In the beginning of the book she says that her goal is to “see whether or not I could match income to expenses, as the truly poor attempt to do everyday.” With some quick research I soon found out that she was actually making more than what was considered the poverty level, and without many additional expenses that one in that living condition would usually be paying. It’s skeptical that she was still struggling so greatly while making more than living wage, giving the impression that she may have been inadequately portraying her true experiences to make for a more heartfelt and interesting story. Even though I think there are steps she could have taken to be more accurate, such as not having transportation etc., I still do think the more personal way she described the hardships she

faced did have a strong impact. While the line between reality and drama is still slightly unclear to me, she did work for long hours at a time, causing me believe the true fatigue that she and many others in that situation face. Although I did have several problems with how she underwent this experiment I found myself intrigued as to how Ehrenreich would solve the everyday problems she faced. Her one sided and slightly twisted version of what poverty looks like was unsettling at times, but I do think some of the more general lesson could be of importance such as the concerns she had as being a single women, which I believed to be relevant and sincere fears. I also enjoyed the friendships she had made, and found it refreshing that she at least could show sympathy for the workers without putting herself above them. I think overall this book was not bad, but should more be taken with an open mind in the hopes that the reader would not assume this is the situation for all low wage workers.
I started out this book very unsure of what to expect. I had a bad feeling that she would not take it seriously and would instead use her little “cheats” such as her ATM card quite often. Though I was surprised this didn't seem to be the case I still did find more and more concerns as I had addressed previously. I could see throughout the book though that her previous biases seemed to lesson, and I feel the book was less about informing the general public, and more of a personal quest for Ehrenreich herself. Overall I am glad I read it, but I don't think any of the information I learned will be useful for me later as the statistics are outdated and the story line flawed.