Rating: 
Summary: my nickel and dimed review
Review: i think this is a great book to read because it shows you and teaches you how people live from pay check to pay cheCk like Barbara Ehrenreich trys to prove and takes it to her own expirience
Rating: 
Summary: Will Open Your Eyes
Review: Initially, in the beginning I was disappointed with the way the book read. Perhaps I was expecting something more formal? But I continued to read anyway, telling myself that since the author's writing style was lively, colorful, and certainly not boring, perhaps I would be rewarded with an interesting tale at the very least. But it is more than just an interesting tale. What is to be said if a white, educated, childless woman can barely make it in today's low wage working world where millions find themselves today? Instead of giving the reader some dry statistical overview of the plight of today's working poor, Ehrenreich manages to take us through the experience, one dismal and unrewarding job to another. But she has a sense of humor that will be sure to produce a chuckle as she sums up the low wage corporate experience in her expressive writing style. Many things are disturbing, the lack of affordable housing on a minimum wage, where even a nutritious meal is a luxury, which was the case with many of her co-workers who struggle it seems just to survive on the bare minimum. Even if we assume the worst, that the author's sole purpose for going on her temporary sojourn to poverty was simply for the selfish reason to produce a book, you would have a hard time convincing me that she did not come away from her experience without some sort of empathy and appreciation for the plight of these overworked and underpaid people. Nor does she merely relate her experiences and then end it, but continues on with an evaluation at the end that is meant to hopefully enlighten the more fortunate among us to the national plight that some large corporations are not really our friend... not in the job market anyway, and why it is so hard for most to 'break out' of their low wage prison. Overall I give it 4 stars. The author should be credited with trying to give a voice to those who perhaps have none and give some insight as to what the reality is for millions who are honest hardworking people who didn't get a break in life, and who perhaps never will.
Rating: 
Summary: How bad is this?
Review: All the many other bad reviews have for the most part summed up the problems with this book, in my opinion far too numerous to even list here. Please see the review, "Aren't There Any Editors Anymore," which gets to the center of the problem for me. But let's get away from politics where Barbie's book is concerned: this is neither the quality nor the depth of something that can be politically debated. The ISSUE certainly is, and our blonde-haired-blue-eyed-PhD (it's all those incessant reminders) author had a chance to produce something meaningful, but she totally blew it to the point of embarrassment. What is most appalling to me than anything is that the media and so many readers bought in. How scary is that? Nickel and Dimed is nothing more than extremely selfish drivel, ill-conceived, poorly "researched" (I use that term very loosely), poorly written to the point of pain by a bad writer who has actually been in Harper's, somehow, and most of all ... published. Who is deciding who the writers are in this country good enough to appear in our elite publications? Evidently, other bad writers. Truly, aren't there any, like, you know, GOOD editors anymore?? maybe i shud submit my grate righting too duh new yourker to.
Rating:
Summary: You must read this book!
Review: Differing upon my initial expectation of a scientific investigation into 'middle income' poverty
( "The High price of Materialism " , "Affluenza" , "The Overworked American", or "The Overspent American" )
the book, "Nickel and Dimed " was a highly emotional personal experience for me. Ehrenreich took away the
technical analysis that I am so comfortable with and put a confronting reality in front of me.
Moved by the story, I asked the first food service person I met at a local restaurant. Bingo!
The service worker or shall I say slave worker was just getting back to work after having broken her wrist where she then was
laid off from work because she was unable to work and of course unable to pay for the medical needs ... the story goes on and on.
Rating:
Summary: Don't Waste Your Nickel and Dime on this book
Review: Boy, where do I start? I live in a similar social class to the author. The author takes us through her search to find affordable housing while holding a minimum wage job. However, she cheats several times along the way. She resorts to advantages of her "real" life along the way. One of the biggest issues of the minimum wage worker seemed to be in the area of heathcare as she discovered in the "maids" chapter. Instead of the author finding out how the minimum wage worker goes about getting heathcare when she herself gets a rash, she cowardly calls her doctor back in FL and has a prescription called in. She seems to play with people's feelings, trys to be the martyr by getting people to stand up when she herself goes back to her $20,000 alone in interest home. It sickens me that she has made money off of this book. Curious, did she donate any of her money to the people that she befriended and gave her "insight" and research into her book? The conclusions she draws at the end are frighteningly obvious. The only real plus of the book is that it did give me new appreciation for how hard the minimum wage work has to struggle just to get by. What suggestions does she has for changes?
Rating: 
Summary: Ideas about "trailer trash"...
Review: This lady apparently passed herself off as a "trailer trash" to write this book about how poorer people live in America. This kind of experiment is all very well, but it seems a bit too easy to me. Surely we'd get more interesting results if it was done the other way round? Why don't any members of the working poor write a book about their experiences as, say, a highly paid academic researcher or manager of a large company? This would provide far more worthwhile insights than this book probably does. People are tired of hearing about poverty anyway, and would rather read about the humourous situations that could arise from a genuine "trailer trash" out of place in the corporate boardrooms of the big end of town, or comically stumbling around the big ivory towers of academia. It could then be made into a moving "fish out of water" comedy film with heart starring Tom Hanks. If this author doesn't want to end up as a genuine "trailer trash", they should give more consideration to the economic viability of the books they write.
Rating:
Summary: Nickel & Dimed
Review: This is a great book. For everyone that works in a minumum wage environment, this book will really hit home. I don't earn minumum wage, but I'm not far off of it. While reading this book, I was struck not so much by how hard it is to survive on so little money, but the humanity of the people featured. This could be because most of it I experience in my day-to-day life also, who knows? Either way I was impresed by stories behind the millions of people that we meet everyday that we never really pay attention to. For me, that was what I walked away from the book with, and why I truely enjoyed this book so much.
Rating: 
Summary: Can We Get a Do-Over?
Review: Okay. Hrm. Flame suit on? Check. Here we go. I liked it... sort of. Well, I like the author. Honestly I do. I feel she made some excellent and necessary discoveries. I'm still for welfare reform, but I strongly agree with what she says about how poverty can feed into itself and helplessly grow if there isn't a way to jump-start a person to a certain baseline that isn't taking two days of pay for every one day of work. Her disclosures on pay being withheld, the expenses job applicants incur for those routine (and apparently ineffective) drug tests, employees not being allowed to stand still for even a minute just because it looks unproductive (yep, been to that rodeo myself), the many ways finding housing means more than having money for rent, and the insight into what a (literally) filthy job those nationwide housekeeping companies are doing was all interesting. What I didn't like was that the research was half-done over and over again. I know she acknowledges this - laments it, even - and that's one reason I like her. But, when you're talking about an experiment in living in poverty, then talk about now and again going back to your lovely Key West home to spend the night and mess with email and put five bucks in the jar for a scrummy dinner from that lovely Key West kitchen, the book takes an unfortunate turn, even more than the (thankfully) brief unfortunate turn it took when she launched into snobbery against those who own decorative antique books. (Okay Ms. Ehrenreich, who are you to assume that people are being pretentious based on some of their most unassuming decor? Why not pass judgement on people who pay for plaid shelf liner instead of plain? Yeah, I admit it - my mother owns decorative antique books - yes, bought in bulk and no, probably never will be read thanks to glaucoma and long hours at the office - but she still genuinely enjoys them. Who are you to say how she must do that? And then you pick on people for displaying certificates and other whatnots of personal achievement, like they're missing The Big Picture... I guess if you came to clean my house and noticed my book prominently displayed on the counter, you'd think I was the most arrogant of snobs when really it sits there out of a sense of my own pure silly happiness to finally have the little sentimental thing published. But no, until poverty is solved, we're to downplay any material joys. *That's* what's chafing even those of us who are far from rich or right-winged. Your housekeeping teammates had a much better perspective when they enjoyed other people's trappings as something to aspire to, not judge and resent.) I can easily handle that Ehrenreich doesn't have to factor kids into the equation, that she has a well-maintained car, that she might call her dermatologist and get a weird rash solved right away without dipping into the budget, even that she has constant Internet access helping her guide her decisions... but there were too many "I know I couldn't get away with this if I were *really* poor"-type situations. Why couldn't she do it properly? I don't care that the message is still valid: IT'S INEXPLICABLY SHODDY RESEARCH. And then, in the end, she pines at length for the union she might have started at Wal-Mart if only she had more time. I was expecting an unhappy ending - this *is* a book about a bad situation that few are successfully hopping to fix - but I didn't know said unhappy ending would be author-generated. I'm not anti-union per se, but her "solution" is as overly-simplistic as the ones dreamt up by those who think that poverty can be instantly cured with a steady job. Again, I like the author, but the book is an apologetic "could've been." While I appreciated the glimpse of enlightenment and enjoyed her easy humour and - to be fair despite my above rant - minimal sermonizing, this project would have done a much better job of preaching to those not already in the choir if the research had been more credibly executed. If we really care, let's have a do-over.
Rating:
Summary: Conservatives hate it. Good.
Review: I can't believe the sheer abuse and misrepresentations being put forward by conservative reviewers of this book. The complaints seem to fall into the following categories. 1 - Miss Ehrenreich lied to her co-workers about her real intentions
2 - She cheated and didn't put herself at risk by sleeping rough when she had to
3 - She's a liberal
4 - She says that the poor choose to be poor 1 This was an undercover operation. HellooOOoo? Telling her employers her real intentions would have prevented her from getting hired, and telling her co-workers the truth would have affected their behaviour. Honesty in that regard would have prevented the experiment from taking place in the first place or skewed the results. 2 The fact that she occasionally had to resort to her credit card to get by, and relied on an initial cash lump sum to pay for her first month's rent, (something she admitted she hadn't though of before) only serve to underscore the conclusion of the book. Corporate America does not pay its low-level workers enough to get by on. That she made a decision to not put her safety at risk is neither here nor there. 3 The word 'liberal' seems to have become appropriated by the right as a term of abuse these days. No need to say anything about that really. 4 I have no idea where this upside-down inside-out conclusion comes from. It certainly didn't come from the book that I read. I read about how tax-cuts for the rich and inadequate incentives for affordable housing construction are the primary weapon in the conservative right's war on the poor. I take my hat off to Miss Ehrenreich for her bravery in voluntarily going without the creature comforts that certain people wouldn't dream of abandoning. I also applaud her honesty in expressing her guilt for feeling frustrated by the lack of willingness among her co-workers to stick up for themselves. It was very insightful to see how she ended up succumbing to the same humble posture when enough pressure was put on her. She also describes the forces that were far beyond their control acting on workers, and why they didn't dare to speak out for fear of being fired. She also expressed guilt for making a few careless remarks that could be construed as contemptuous. The anecdotal approach makes this very easy to read. It also serves as a good backdrop for the well-researched social commentary that comes complete with reliable sources cited. The fact that conservatives are tearing this book apart can only mean that it has achieved what it set out to do. The truth hurts.
Rating:
Summary: "Economically-Superior" Guilt or just plain rubbish...
Review: I had this book on my 'to-read' list for several years now... I was initially interested because a similar but much more honest author in the United Kingdom undertook a very similar investigation (Below the Breadline: Living on the Minimum Wage
by Fran Abrams). At the time it was more socially relevant to me because I was living in the UK - but since I'm back in the States Barbara's book seemed worth a try. Ultimately - I did not expect to walk away with a new-found understanding of the economic underclass... what I was interested in was how Ehrenreich would feel in the role. The disappointingly arrogant view of her new self-inflicted world was somewhat surprising. The book was stretched out - more padding then true insights... but the "Evaluation" was the real Ehrenreich unleashed... This book may have been slightly more eye-opening to the clueless in 2000-2001 - but by 2003 if you haven't heard enough about recession, job loss and the working poor then you should stick to 'Green Eggs and Ham' for literary fodder. We are led to believe that somehow this book will (or at the very least 'should') make some kind of impact. Not a chance. Not when the investigative author herself culminates with the thought that in actuality the poor are making conscience and heartfelt sacrifices for the wealthy everyday by working substandard jobs -and we should respect them for this. So ultimately - she is saying the poor choose to be poor. She didn't learn a thing.
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