Rating: 
Summary: *Nickel and Dimed*
Review: Jackie DiModica
Nickel and Dimed
Question 3 This book taught me alot on how I value my life. This book taught me not to take things for granted. For example when I go into a store and see something I like I buy it, even though I have enough shirts. I could have donated the money that I used to buy the shirt to buy some food for the poor. She valued life from a different perspective after doing this experiment. Reading this book opened up my eyes alot it taught me something new on how I value my life. I think Barbara was very brave to put her current life aside and, start a new life by working many different jobs and trying to live off of minimum wage.
She found working all these different jobs very difficult, just trying to live off of minimum wage. She found it very tiring because, she would be going from job to job, just so she could make ends meat. One part of the book i didn't like was when Barbara decided to do this experiment and went off holding down many different jobs, to show how the real poor people try to make ends meat. These jobs that she has taken, real poor people that needed jobs could of had one of these jobs but, instead Barbara was working these jobs to show how the poor people actually lived.
Other then that I found this book to be quite interesting. I would say that I learned a lot from this book. One thing that I learned was to go to college, and get a good education so I won't be working many different jobs, just so that i make ends meat so that i can survive. This book taught me not to take life for granted. After reading this book, it made me stop and think about what things i take for granted every day. It made me realize that i may not have some of the things that some of my friends might have, and i probably want them but i can't have them. I realized that i can be happy with what i have. There are people out in the world who want certain things, but can't have them because they can barely make ends meat.
Barbara went through a tough time just doing this experiment, she was pratically living another life, she was living this life a lot differently then she would be living her normal life. While living this life she got frusterated and aggravated at times. There were times that she just wanted to stop doing this experiment, but she had faith in herself and kept going. She wasn't going to give up, because she was doing us a favor by showing us all the things that the poor people have to go through. No one forced her to do this, she decided to do this on her own, and she has learned a lot from this even though through out time she had faced some hardships, but managed to get around them.
This book also came as a shocker to me, I never knew that poor people went through this much trouble just trying to find a job so they can make ends meat and, occasionilly treat themselves to special things. I didn't realize surviving off of ends meat was that hard. Some people think that when you are living off of ends meat you can have a t.v., radio, computer, go out to eat, and buy brand name clothes. The truth is that you really can't you might be able to have a t.v. without cable and maybe a radio but that is even pushing it. I think if you were poor you would be spending your money wisely and not foolishly.
Rating: 
Summary: Nickel and Dimed
Review: The idea for this book sparked when Barbara Ehrenreich went out to lunch with the editor of Harper's magazine, Lewis Lapham. They were discussing topics for articles she would write for his magazine, when Barbara suggested poverty. She asked
How does anyone live on the wages available to the unskilled? How, in particular, we wondered, were the roughly four million women about to be booted into the labor market going to by welfare reform going to make it on $6 or $7 an hour? (1)
To find out the answer, Barbara was thinking someone could make an experiment out of this, and when Lapham asked her to do it, she agreed.
In 1998, Barbara left her home in Key West, FL, to take entry-level jobs in Florida, Maine, and Minnesota. Her goal was to be able to match her income with her expenses by taking jobs as a waitress, a nursing home aid, a maid, and a Wal-Mart salesclerk. Ehrenreich learns that she cannot eat and pay the rent in the same month without getting a second job. She says: "No one ever said that you could work hard - harder even than you ever thought possible - and still find yourself sinking ever deeper into poverty and debt." (220)
Ehrenreich says that working these minimum wage jobs is especially difficult in America.
Most civilized nations compensate for the inadequacy of wages by providing relatively generous public services such as health insurance, free or subsidized child care, subsidized housing, and effective public transportation. But the United States, for all its wealth, leaves its citizens to fend for themselves - facing market-based rents, for example, on their wages alone. For millions of Americans, that $10 - or even $8 or $6 - hourly wage is all there is. (214)
Ehrenreich found it very hard to find affordable housing in all of the places that she went to. Most people that work minimum wage jobs do not have enough money for a car, and need to live close to their work, but more likely than not, this is not possible. So what are they supposed to do then? This becomes a huge problem for many people.
Overall this was a good book. It showed how hard it is for the working poor to eat and pay all their bills in the same month. Barbara could not do it without having two jobs. For a single mother, that's nearly impossible. How are they supposed to work two jobs in order to have enough money, and still take care of their children? These women are not getting by. The average amount of money that a person needs to make in order to get by is $14 an hour. A minimum wage job pays half of that. Even with all of Ehrenreich's advantages, such as her educations, good health, a car, and money for the first moths rent, she can't make ends meet. This book really highlights how hard it is to survive on a minimum wage job. Some of the people that Barbara became friends with worked full time, and still couldn't afford housing so they had to live out of their car. I can't even imagine how hard that would be. People take for granted some of the things that they have in life such as a roof over their head, or a nice hot meal, but after reading this book, you begin to see how lucky you really are. Barbara Ehrenreich did a great job of uncovering the world of the working poor.
I would recommend this book to anyone that thinks they have it bad.
Rating:
Summary: Too Sarcastic and Too Angry For Me
Review: After having read an excerpt of Nickle and Dimed in The Sun Magazine, my interest was piqued and thought I'd purchase a copy to see what I could learn from Ms. Ehrenreich's sobering experiment. I'm unfortunately disappointed. I admire Ms. Ehrenreich's guts in pulling this feat off. I am discouraged though by her hypocrisy, her belittlement of her colleagues, and her sarcastic and biting whining. Ms. Ehrenreich has enlightened me but her writing style is stifling and suffocating. This is the first time in my life I have felt anger and rage reading a book not so much because of what I was reading but more so because of the author's contempt towards her indiscriminate subjects of the working class.
Rating:
Summary: C. Fahey (MSJA)
Review: I recently read the book Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich, and I have to say I truthfully had mixed feelings about it. I do give the author credit for going undercover and doing the research herself instead of using just books and statistics and other people's experiences. I think it took a lot to give up her comfortable life and go around the country to try and survive. I liked how she chose to try different jobs in different parts of the country instead of just one. However, at times in the book she seemed 'snobby' and a little overly sarcastic. I also felt she filled the book with too many statistics and footnotes, so it seemed like you were reading two things at once.
I think Barbara Ehrenreich put in a good amount of effort in looking for a job, housing, etc., but her attitude always came off as her feeling like she was better then her coworkers. She wanted to experience what it was like to be a minimum wage worker, but I don't think she ever really let herself do that. She always mentioned her higher education as something that made her better then everyone else, and she never let anyone forget that she was just pretending to live that way. Ms. Ehrenreich acted shocked each time she 'revealed herself' to a coworker and they showed no astonishment or surprise. As if now that they knew her real life she was back to being superior to them and they should act excited and curious about her. She expected these huge reactions, but no one really cared. I disliked how she often went off into boring descriptions of the jobs and complained about how much she hated it.
What I liked about this book was that I felt it was really an eye opener. Though I didn't really care for the way she chose to write the book, I think overall it was a good idea. Before, I never really thought about waitresses at restaurants or cashiers at Wal-Mart. Why were they working there? Is it just a part time job or it is their whole lives? Do they have a family, and where do they live? I didn't realize how little they made and the fact that so many worked two or three jobs just to get by. It really made me appreciate what I have and look at things with a different perspective. Though at time the story could get repetitive, each place of work had different challenges and things to learn.
In general, I would recommend this book. I think it is very informative, and it makes you think. Though the author can sometimes sound rude at times, I think it contains a good amount of humor. I think the author had a good balance between her perspective on the working poor life, as an undercover reporter, and her coworkers' perspective of their real lives. Overall it is interesting and gives a good insight into her life during this undercover project. Like almost any book it had it ups and downs, but it is informative and keeps Barbara Ehrenreich's story going. At first, I was not looking forward to reading this book, but I am definitely glad I did.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad at all.
Review: I read some articles from Ms. Ehrenreich and in the fall of 2001 someone mentioned this book to me. I was intrigued and even saw it on display in some bookstores. It wasnt until recently that I had a chance to read it. I commend the author for having the guts to try to live like a working class citizen in the U.S.
I had similar experiences in my own life in the workforce. I found a few flaws in her research. In many areas in the United States you can not limit yourself to certain jobs because you take what you can get. The author limited her research by only taking waitressing jobs in florida and retail jobs in Minnesota.
She chose to rent a car which for many folks is a luxary.
Many people take public transportation to work and it is part of life. Minimum wage jobs are sometimes more beneficial than the $8 or $10 an hour jobs. The higher wage jobs may require a longer commute and minimum wage jobs may be available walking distance from where you live. Longer commute jobs are more difficult because those jobs requires to spend more money in transportation. I do understand why some people are barely getting by paycheck to paycheck. The results are horrible with little or no savings and higher medical needs. The author was only temporarily in the real and rough world, and she chose to exit whenever she wanted (many can not choose to leave poverty that easily and quickly). I have high praises for her for doing the research which most journalist would not even think about doing. Hopefully, with the publicity of this book some light can be shed and consciousness can be raised. Maybe in the future some CEOs or their spouses will pick up this book and read it and then it would be worth it.
Rating: 
Summary: Required Reading
Review: After 15 years of working in exactly the kinds of jobs described in this book, I decided that everyone should have to do the same work for at least one day in their life. Now I think they should have to read this book while they are at it. Most people have no idea what kind of back breaking and degrading work millions of people do for minimum wage. I hope Ms. Ehrenreich opens up some eyes.
Rating:
Summary: Right On the Money!
Review: It is a sad reality that many in this country think that one can get by on a wage of $7 an hour and that many think of people on welfare or in shelters as "lazy". Ehrenreich dispels the myth that these people are truly lazy -- in reality, they cannot get decent work. For those that claim that these people can work full-time and go to college, she dispels the myth of that in describing one of her co-workers ar Wal-Mart. I recommend this book for those in government and those who think they know abou society.
Rating:
Summary: Book Review for Nickel and Dimed
Review: What happens when a successful, middle-aged writer delves into the world of poverty and low-wage jobs? She finds a whole new place that is much more complicated than she ever imagined.
Becoming a low-wage laborer began as an experiment for Barbara Ehrenreich. She felt that poverty would be a good topic to write about in her coming features in Harper's magazine and she was really interested in learning about how anyone could live on $6-7 an hour. However, how would someone who had never been in a situation like that before be truly able to write about surviving on low wages? Ehrenreich realized this little problem and volunteered herself to venture into the low-wage workforce in order to have a firsthand account and unforgettable experience.
With only her laptop (to record her experiences), a car (she either used her own or rented one using her credit card), and $1,300 ($1000 for the first month's rent, $100 for her first batch of groceries, and $200 for emergencies), Ehrenreich started a cross-country tour into the low-wage workforce. The journey began closest to home in Key West, Florida, where she rented trailers and usually found herself working two jobs at a time. These jobs included waitressing at two different restaurants and the short-lived trial of housekeeping at a hotel. Next, she moved to Maine's Portland area, where she stayed at motels, and worked both as a dietary aide serving the elderly and a member of a housekeeping team, known as The Maids. Her last stop was in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she stayed in hotels and worked as a Wal-Mart associate, rearranging and stocking the shelves of the ladies' department.
Barbara Ehrenreich found herself in an array of jobs, living quarters, and places, but realized that being a low-wage worker was a difficult task no matter what your situation. How well she did in her experiences was nothing compared what she learned. One of the most important lessons that she gained was "no job, no matter how lowly, is truly 'unskilled'" (193). "Unskilled" refers to the jobs that many of the poor are forced to take, offering the lowest wages of all - usually $6-7 per hour. Ehrenreich had a different opinion on the title given to these types of jobs, though. She says of the "unskilled" jobs she came across, "Every one of the six jobs I entered into in the course of this project required concentration, and most demanded that I master new terms, new tools, and new skills - from placing orders on restaurant computers to wielding the backpack vacuum cleaner" (193). Also, she found that many of the jobs she took on were physically demanding and "damaging if performed month after month" (195). The working poor are extremely underpaid for the work that they have to face day in and day out. Not only did she take on a new perspective on the types of jobs offered to the poor, but she saw what sacrifices the working poor were often forced to make. For example, the low wages make it impossible to pay for medical care. Once, when a co-worker broke her ankle on the job, she refused to stop working and went back into the house that she was cleaning at the time, scrubbing the bathrooms using only one foot. When the choice between medical attention and losing out on some pay presents itself, the low-wage laborer usually skips the medical visit because every little earning counts.
Most importantly, Ehrenreich opened up what was most likely a new world for her readers. (Well, this was true in my situation, at least.) What Ehrenreich learned in her experiences only broadened my scanty knowledge of what it is like to be a member of the working poor. Every bit of knowledge she gained, I gained, too. Through her writing, she urges her readers to desire for a change in the work force. I now know that the most important change that can be made in the low-wage working world is increased pay. However, as a 16-year-old student, the most I can do is learn about the working poor and respect them for the sacrifices that they have to make to survive. This book was a surprisingly entertaining and obviously knowledgeable read that I would recommend to anyone who wants to see what it is like to suddenly drop a middle-class lifestyle to learn what it is like to be a low-wage worker.
Rating:
Summary: A compelling look at the state of the nation's poor
Review: Ehrenreich went "undercover" and worked as a minimum wage worker and did so in order to better convey the epidemic of poverty that exists here in the world's richest nation. Millions of Americans have to struggle to survive and have no time or resources to attain an education or escape the poverty they were born into. Health coverage in this country continues to leave millions of Americans (including children) out in the cold and having to crowd into free clinics where the resources are limited and less than adequate. This is the reality that the wealth elites would have the masses not scrutinize. Instead, we get the whole "pull yourselves up by your bootstraps" garbage. That's fine if you're born into a stable family and have had the advantage of going to safe and relatively competent schools (which I have had), but it is foolish to believe that those people who lack these advantages can simply rise above their lot in life without some aid (either in education or at least providing all Americans with basic food, shelter, and health coverage). What is perhaps even more disconcerting are the number of poor and middle class Americans who have bought into the whole conservative myth that the rich are the ones being discriminated against because people want to take away their hard-earned money! Exactly how hard does a person who inherits millions work? Does a CEO work any harder than a lifelong construction worker? It's about fairness. After a certain point, the money you've earned can be increased through investments and not hard work. And without an education and the means to attain wealth, the poor masses remain stuck in the position they were born into while the rich and privileged continue to pull the wool over the eyes of their supporters by duping them into believing that minimum wage is a livable wage. Not here in California it isn't. I work and go to school and barely scrape by, but I'm not going to complain. It's the people that I've known and still know who are stuck working low paying jobs and I see them barely making rent payments and going without health insurance that troubles me. Ehrenreich shows through example that working minimum wage jobs is not enough for survival in this country (even in states where the cost of living isn't as high as here in California or New York etc.). Not to mention the fact that the work is itself extremely taxing and no doubt there are many workers who toil their entire lives only to die in abject poverty and all so the very rich can keep their hoarded billions in a form of gluttony and greed that is pointless and contrary to the American dream. Ehrenreich has done us all a great service and this book is definitely worth checking out.
Rating:
Summary: excellent, what an eye opener!
Review: This book should be required reading for all policy makers. The housing crisis in America is simple horrible. I have renewed respect for anyone in a service occupation, and a renewed passion to see change. I couldn't agree more that it is the affluent who are dependent on the working poor - not the other way around. I have become a more considerate customer and a more generous donor to food shelves as a result of reading this book. I only hope that this message can make its way to those with the power to change things. An excellent book, enjoyable to read and very enlightening!
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