Rating: 
Summary: an important book
Review: I am a subscriber to _The Nation_ magazine, which often features pieces by Barbara Ehrenreich, so when I read about this book I was excited to find out what her "undercover" work would reveal about living on minimum wage (or a few dollars above, actually). I wasn't disappointed. Ms. Ehrenreich, who points out that she has a PhD and that when she travels is often given an important title like "keynote speaker" or "discussion group leader," tries to find low paying jobs and a place to live in three different places: Key West; Portland, Maine; and Minneapolis. She was able to find work by going through the indignity of drug testing, personality tests, and computerized interviews without appearing too overqualified, but finding an affordable place to live was another matter entirely, and she had extreme difficulty with that in all three cities.It was interesting to read about her experiences waitressing in a busy, touristy restaurant and then switching to a busier, more touristy restaurant in Key West because it paid better... but she wasn't allowed breaks, or even to "chat" with the customers or other waitresses. In Maine, she worked weekends in a retirement home serving food to alzheimer's patients (probably her most agreeable job) and during the week for a house-cleaning company; in Minneapolis she suffered through a month-long job at Wal-Mart, where she actually dared to discuss the value of unions with other employees, something which would have gotten her fired had she not been leaving soon anyway to complete her book. Ehrenreich's conclusion is that it is impossible to finance any kind of rent on 7.00 an hour, and very difficult even on 10.00 an hour. It is even worse for single parents (women are her primary focus) and most she meets on the job are living with relatives. She points out that welfare reform, however much trumpeted as a success by the press and the Clinton administration, does not work if people just off welfare are going to make less at their jobs than they did with the government's monthly check (especially including the necessary gasoline, childcare, uniforms, and expensive health care deductibles). My only difficulty with the book was that at times it seemed slightly condescending. I myself am in a service job, and in 1998 (until I was promoted and then got married) I actually WAS able to live in a small Ohio college town in an efficiency just fine on 7.50 an hour, even though I was living alone. Granted, it was a horrible apartment, and I'm not trying to invalidate Ehrenreich's findings. However, I did think some of her statements seemed to be biased by normally living in "the top 20%," as she classifies herself at the end of the book. For example, upon being told to show up the next day at the restaurant where she was hired, she writes: "At the word _tomorrow_, something between fear and indignation rises in my chest. I want to say, 'Thank you for your time, sir, but this is just an experiment, you know, not my actual life.'" Well, for millions of Americans, it is real life. And isn't that supposed to be the point? Still, an important book by a brave woman who entered the lower classes with more guts than most in her position would have.
Rating:
Summary: A good start
Review: If you've ever tried to make ends meet as one of America's "common workers," you won't learn much from Ms. Ehrenreich's experiment. But if you haven't, it's an eye-opening book. I was very excited to read this book, after hearing gushing reviews from friends, but as someone who has lived this life, I was slightly disappointed. Don't get me wrong, I love that it is a very popular book that may make more people aware of the situation of America's poor, and the fact that it is short is a plus. And one of the strengths of the book is how she described the situations of her coworkers. But while the author's experiment in working low-wage jobs was a great idea, but I don't think she committed enough to it. She just didn't seem to do it long enough to really get the feeling of not knowing how you are going to pay your bills. And admittedly she did state this in the beginning. But allowing herself to live this life and its emotions would have made it a much richer story. Plus, and this really irked me, she left out a few necessary expenses. When you're having a hard enough time paying rent, food, utilities, etc, one of the biggest whammies is when your car insurance needs to get paid. The author put gas in her list of expenses, but not registration, oil, breakdowns, or even insurance or payments! If all I had to pay for transportation was gas I would do a little dance every day on my way to the car. The "Evaluation" at the end is the best part of the book. This is where her frustration from living a slice of this life seems to come out in her own sincere way; through journalistic research. This section is extremely informative and I give it an A.
Rating: 
Summary: Author seemed a bit full of herself
Review: I found the book quite insightful but I thought the author started to think too much of herself. But not a horrible book.
Rating: 
Summary: Couldn't believe what I was reading
Review: Ehrenreich's account of the real life of the so-called "lazy people who just need to go out there and get a job" is sickeningly real. A few reviewers who have posted negative reviews of this book discount it as "femaley" (if that is an actual adjective) in writing and placing the blame for poor people's woes on the well-to-do, college-educated, upper-middle class man. My only comment to such criticism is that her book must hit closer to home than some of those people like and it's easier to castigate the book as "womanly drivel" than to actually realize that as a member of the upper-middle class, we have the power to change the system, and maybe, in small part, are partially to blame. Ehrenreich repeatedly notes that what she experiences in her bouts of "living" in Florida, Maine, and Minnesota is far from what the real low-wage working class experiences. She notes her own faults and biases, and yet this book still comes off as a stunning and yet, depressing, portrait of Americana. There are poor in this country. No, the government does not always assist them, so upper-middle class America cannot use that excuse to assuage their conscious that there is "nothing I can do." And, no, just "getting a job" is not enough to "get by" in America. The book is well documented and referenced, forcing even the most negative critics of this book to realize (much to their chagrin) that our illustrious leaders have misled the upper-middle class into believing that "poor people" do not exist anymore. Moreover, that only we as a whole society can change the drastic downward spiral of the low-wage worker.
Rating:
Summary: A Case Study in Perverse Incentives
Review: The opening sentence exemplifies the basic problem with this book: "Mostly out of laziness, I decide to start my low-wage life in the town nearest to where I actually live..." Aside from the absurdity of deciding to start a low-wage lifestyle, that tells me that, when placed in the situation of the average low-skill worker, Ehrenreich will still have her home & job as a famous columnist to go back to if she fails to break out of poverty. And if she succeeds, there's not much of a market in a book telling people how she got out of poverty, because everybody knows how you do that. The bias resulting from this artificial situation runs even deeper than her readily apparent ideological biases, and effects the decisions she makes when placed in a nominal state of poverty. Sure enough, when living with little income in a relatively high-rent city, she fails to do the obvious by either getting a roommate or moving to a low-rent city. Likewise, she fails to discern the widespread availability of social welfare programs that might help her situation, such as food stamps, Medicaid, and Section 8. Was this an intentional omission on her part? It almost doesn't matter. The very premise of this book is a foregone conclusion. What is most galling about the book is Ehrenreich's irritating tone of condescension towards the poor throughout, of which the whole prince-and-pauper schtick is but an example. You know, the whole "I will live among you" thing. For you who are voiceless, I will be your voice. Who is she anyway, Diane Fossey? That wouldn't be the first time such an exponent of forward-thinking and progressive-mindedness witlessly insulted the people she mooned over, would it?
Rating:
Summary: Great Concept. Awful Author
Review: The concept of this book is really good, but the way the author goes about it is all wrong. This book is not enlightening at all because the author focuses on herself instead of the people who really have to make do on minimum wage. The footnotes in this book are good and the only reason I would even give this book 1 star. How anyone could read this book and not get the vibe that the author is self important is beyond me. What a waste of a great opportunity on the author's part to really explore the lives of the individuals she came into contact with on her journey.
Rating:
Summary: Makes you think
Review: This book makes you think about what it is like to be part of the working class in America. I suggest you read this for a view of life in someone else's shoes.
Rating:
Summary: Worth a read.
Review: Nickel and Dimed is well written, interesting and a little depressing. It documents author Barbara Ehrenreich's experience in trying to make ends meet in low-paying menial work.
For those of us that have ever had to scrub toilets or the like for a living, or had too much week left a the end of the money this book will be not so much shocking as it is a reconfirmation of the all-too-real feelings of invisibility,hopelessness and insubordination. Some people are able to pull themselves up by the bootstraps and some not. Many of the people documented here fall into the latter category, with living circumstances that would make forward progress difficult.
My concern is that the people that most need to read this - the odd remaining dinosaur of the middle and upper classes who still view the poor as lazy or unworthy of help, will not bother to invest time in it. Still, we need more books like this one that expose the unjustices and indignities of life in the 'working poor', an already huge class of people whose numbers swell with every passing day.
Rating: 
Summary: Compelling in parts
Review: Nickel and Dimed paints a picture that tells a thousand words. Far removed from the everyday world of unemployment rates, minimum wages, poverty lines and other myriad statistics that serve only to numb us from the true meaning of poverty, Ehrenreich aims right for the jugular -- and succeeds. Infinitely more compelling than her own travails, which are disappointing shallow in nature, are the stories of her co-workers and their managers. These are the people behind the numbers. Real, breathing flesh. The people driving their beat-up dodges behind your SUV. Ehrenreich writes well and has a flair for using the more-than-occasional obscenity to jar the reader out of his comfort zone. It is refreshing that she does not try to attack or 'guilt' the reader, but rather just sticks to narration. Nickel and Dimed is a quick read, definitely not a deep, literate tome you will find yourself reading over again. Ehrenreich has a simple story to tell. And she tells it well.
Rating:
Summary: Where are the roommates?
Review: No one can afford this type of rent solo on these kind of wages. I made this work with a 2 or 3 bedroom apartment and splitting up the expenses with roommates. The general premise behind this book is that people are entitled to live better than minimum wage will afford. I do not believe that people are entitled to any standard of living. People are certainly not entitled to a standard of living mandated or granted by the government and definitely not by taking the money earned by one person and giving to another person who earns less. People are only entitled to opportunity. There are millions of stories of people starting with nothing and achieving success in this country. There is no caste or group that you can be born to or join that will bar you from the highest rungs of success in America.
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