Rating: 
Summary: You'll laugh, you'll cry...
Review: The author does an excellent job of describing the lives of her co-workers, physically, and psycologically, which can be pretty funny. Some of her decriptions of situations had me in tears! I understand that the meaning of the book is not exactly to make people laugh, in fact, it is very depressing. I worked low wage jobs enough through college to understand the plight of the workers, but I am also extremely lucky to have graduated from college and get paid a salary, and buy this book in hard cover.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Book, Good Study, but...
Review: I found this book to be extremely interesting and thought provoking. It made me realize why my 401K plan has done so well for the past 10 years....companies value stock return above all else...even people.I think the idea for the book and the "uderground" investigation was excellent, and the book was very well written. I was, however, dismayed by some of the techniques used...such as trying to survive as a working poor in an area where she lived and already had an idea of the job and housing situation. Also, I questioned her taking along emergency money. It would have been a much more realistic study had she gone out with no "backup" funds. With those faults aside, I think she came to valid conclusions and we should send a copy of this book to every member of Congress to let them see what "soft money" campaign donations has led to. I was amazed at my own reaction after finishing the book. I stopped and thought about the maid who was making up my hotel room, the wait staff who brought my food, etc. It made me think a lot harder about the tip I was going to leave. It also made me think long and hard about writing to my Congressmen about an increase in the minimum wage.
Rating:
Summary: An important book.
Review: I am telling EVERYONE about this extraordinary book. It's changed the way I look at people and the way I look at my own job. And it's so well written -- the darn thing is really hard to put down! Parts read like a novel, and I CARED about the people she met. I want everybody to read this book! It's about work, it's about housing, it's about how we all treat the "people without faces": the waiters, cleaners, factory workers, retail stockers, service industry workers, etc., who work their tails off and still make less than they need to get by. It's about a society that says these people want to live this way so why should we raise the minimum wage because that would just punish the poor business owner. It raises questions such as Why assume all your workers are going to steal from you? Why assume that only if we watch them degrade themselves by peeing into a bottle in front of us are they then worthy of stocking our shelves -- when our President is an admitted past drug user? It's about the economy, the invisible poor, health care, sick pay, child care, rest breaks, respect, silly pre-employment screening tests, drug tests, cameras watching every move. And "skills," or lack of them. As she says, it's a fallacy to say "unskilled labor." I kept thinking, esp. in regard to the people in the book working two jobs, as so many people do, what kind of life do they have? I've always said, "You only work so that you can afford to have a private life. And if you're not having a private life because you have no time or energy or can't afford it, or if your work leaks over and ruins your private life, then something's wrong." A good thought, but after this book it appears that I've been spoiled, and it's not that simplistic. She says in the book that what's going on is that these people are selling their lives. For minimum wage. And they're not getting paid what their life is worth. A life changer.
Rating:
Summary: sobering, insightful, often funny look at low wage workplace
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed Barbara Ehrenreich's very readable and informative venture into the world of low wage work (i.e., hourly wages in the range of $6 - 8 / hour). She attempts, in three different venues, (to the extent possible) to live a life with the same limitations and constraints as one who does not have the option to "re-emerge" after the "experiment" is done. What results is a book that splits open the reality that low wage earners, no matter how industrious and penny pinching, cannot live a "viable" existence as many of us know it. More specifically, the existence slowly saps your health, your dignity, and your drive. Furthermore, this is a working class which is routinely and systematically taken advantage of by its employers. After reading this book, I wanted to approach both Washington and the private sector and demand an answer to the question: How can we achieve a society in which every hard working resident can earn a "living" wage, with dignity intact? Perhaps the one shortcoming of the book is that Erhrenreich does not attempt to address substantially this question herself.
Rating:
Summary: The Other Working Poor
Review: Barbara Ehrenreich's book only brought to light a portion of those trying to survive on next to minimum wages. We only hear about the former welfare group. What about divorced mothers (like myself). Barbara, how about a book on young women who drop out of college (or never attend). Instead they marry a man with a good income and become a traditional stay-at-home mom. Then the husband decides he's not happy, finds another woman, etc..., and they are divorced. You now have an under educated middle-aged mother with little work experience trying to find one of the "invisible" service jobs; receptionist, secretary, etc..., plus daycare for children, which is also a new experience. Even with child support and her paycheck, there is usually 75% reduction in family income. (Not to mention high childcare & summer day camp costs). If the husband is like mine, he will decide that he is paying too much child support and leave his job. No income for the father equals no child support due to the ex-wife (nice plan for any men out there looking for an out). The mother's income is too low to qualify for any type of welfare or food stamps, yet she really can't survive on her income. You trying working seven days a week and leaving the children unsupervised on weekends. But, you still can't pay the bills. There is no way out of this mess. Help!!!
Rating: 
Summary: We need to help these people ...
Review: I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would and I can recommend it to everyone. It is an easy read and will provoke some thought whether you are liberal or conservative. However, I can only give it three stars instead of the four I would like to give it because the author engages in too much agenda grinding rather than honest reporting. For example, she hates drug tests and admits to smoking marijuana. Now being against drug tests is one thing, but to say that they are an abuse of the lower classes is, I think, a sign of cultural provincialism. Try and get a job at ...or many other well-paying jobs without taking a drug test. In fact, the modern workplace gives many people on both sides of the political spectrum cause for concern for their personal rights. However, employers also have good arguments for their need to know especially in the face of lawsuits involving what the employer should have known. There is pain for all involved. She also never talks about the fact that not all jobs are meant to be for the full support of families. There are many people in the workplace for many different reasons. Her discussions of economics touch on the usual liberal articles of faith, but she seems to have no idea what an indifference curve is or what it implies. Simply, people take jobs not because they are made to, but because they prefer taking the job to the other opportunities available to them. They are free to leave it anytime they wish, as they often do at the low end of the pay scale. As she herself did from a waitress gig. People should be encouraged to trade-up on jobs! Mainly, she writes about her personal experiences in getting and learning these jobs. When she is reporting it is good. When she is grousing about her personal preferences she is less than good. Obviously, she is not really cut out for the jobs she took, especially the cleaning job, and it shows through in her writing. Another thing she never learned, because she never kept the jobs long enough, is that physical jobs become EASIER after a period of months. She didn’t dig deeply enough about the truth of these work experiences. My guess is that her cultural prejudice blinded her in part, and also because she didn’t have the energy to do the extra work necessary. I remember when I first began working on the line at a Ford plant. It was miserable for the first month or two, and then it got easier. It became easier because my body adapted and even more because I learned how to work the job. She never worked a job more than a month so she reports an incomplete picture and comes across as a working tourist. Those of us from the working class who have done that work know that she doesn’t truly understand the experience. But at least she tries to understand and that is more than most. But her prescriptions are too facile. She is all for unions and higher minimum wages as cures. .... We also do not need higher minimum wages although they seem so attractive to workers. They really do result in limiting the mix and flexibility of the employment opportunities available. What we DO need is to educate children from their earliest school days about money, about work, and about their right to say no and find other employment. Just don’t take jobs you hate. And work your way up the employment ladder by all available means. Don’t think you OWE things to your employer beyond an honest day’s work. It would be a wonderful day when these awful employers have to close down because everyone says no to them. Of course, their greed would force them to change. But the key is to prepare yourself so you can say no because you have the reserves and opportunities to move on. Read this book. Think about it. But don’t drink too deeply of the kool-aid she presents. It isn’t the whole picture. The working class life is both better and worse than she presents. But at least it is a lively and sympathetic view into the situation.
Rating:
Summary: all hail the minimum wage slave
Review: Excellent book, in the spirit of Upton Sinclair "The Jungle" and George Orwell "Down and Out in Paris and London". As America deindustrializes, unskilled labor is becoming increasingly abundant and redundant. Those that cannot adapt and accept their lot in life as a minimum wage slave are mopped up by an eager and aggressive run for profit prison-industrial system. One way or another, the profiteers are gonna profit. "Where-ever you look, there is no alternative to the megascale corporate order ... What you see- highways, parking lots, stores - is all there is, or all thats left to us here in the reign of globalized, totalized, paved-over, corporatized everything". (Nickel and Dimed, pg 179)
Rating:
Summary: Not Science, but... Very Well Done
Review: Barbara Ehrenreich states that she will do something-- that is, attempt to live (or at least tread water) in the low-wage work-world-- and she does it. She concludes that it isn't easy. Her conclusions are not scientific (the idea that science can be adequately describe social phenomena is a myth anyway) nor are they absolute. Yet nonetheless they are poignant and insightful. Ehrenreich's book details her struggle with lower-middle-class life-- the jobs and the financial stresses, that is. She finds the jobs to be demanding and draining and the stress to be near-unbearable. Of course, one can point out that Ehrenreich did not use all her assets and possibilites (for example, there is little chance for corporate advancement working a job for a month at a time, and she didn't make smart choices regarding where to live) and that many of her issues with the "working poor" world were subjective and based upon a middle-class standpoint. Nonetheless, many of her conclusions were objective. Those she worked with were treated by management in unfair ways, and many around her were, unfortunately, ruined by the evil that is America's privately-based health-insurance system... her story points out many flaws in the supposed "prosperity" today. Ehrenreich's venture into a thoroughly depressing world illustrates the true evil at the heart of America. Most of us in the 1990s (really '00s, but it's still the 90s culturally...) would like to believe that a rising tide is lifting all boats, but N&D shows it isn't so. Ehrenreich's book deals with people who are counter-examples to the prevailing myths. It's often been said that any job is a ticket to opportunity, but N&D shows us many workers (mainly female and minority) who, especially with the constricted "efficiency" (downsizing and other rape) management models that roughly corresponded with the Reagan disaster, work in jobs that are not even tickets to being treated with dignity, much less opportunity. I could state more about this book, but I don't want to give too much away. Everyone should read this book. Managers, intellectuals, liberals and conservatives, religious men/women (she insults religion in a way I consider unfair, but that's more of a side note than anything else), government workers, CEOs, college students, wealthy and poor (in short, everyone over about 18) ought to read it. It's not perfect, and has some biases, but it has something to teach everyone. ~Mike
Rating:
Summary: 4 stars for undertaking the project
Review: Dr. Ehrenreich took on a courageous project. Bravo for her chutzpah! She provided a much needed viewpoint on the other side of the economic boom at the end of 1999 to 2000. The book was a fascinating read about where the low-wage service employees reside. While she examined the life of the working poor and her own reaction to such a life very honestly, I disagree with her interpretations. For someone who is trained in the sciences, the statistics and studies she quoted to support her theories lacked rigor. I was very disappointed in the lack of reliable endnotes or bibliography. While we empathize with the currently inflated housing prices and the shortage of affordable housing, we disagree with her simple generalization that the wealthy oppress the poor. Such old-school socialist dogma fail to address all the complexities contributing to the economic divide between rich and poor. In addition, unionizing low-wage employees will NOT solve all their problems.
Rating:
Summary: A brave, honest and important book not to be missed
Review: Barbara Ehrenreich has always been one of my heroes, but after reading Nickel and Dimed, I have even greater respect for her. Few social critics or perhaps any politicians have the temerity to do what she did - to actually see whether they can survive in the same low-paying jobs thousands and thousands of Americans depend on to live. As an outsider looking in, she provides invaluable insight into the working poor. Ms. Ehrenreich never pretends to be in the same situation as many of those she works with and recognizes her advantages. But as she tries to earn enough money to live on and have enough for the next month's rent in three different states - Florida, Maine and Minnesota - she realizes that these advantages are pretty much the opposite. What she learns is fascinating, disturbing, educational and so much more ... For me, it helped put a face to all those women who were taken off the welfare rolls and reveal the lives that awaited them, as well as giving voices to many who never would have had an audience. I think that her surprise at how little difference her education and experience makes is especially informative, as she goes to lengths to make sure not to 'give' herself away. And in the end she learns more about herself and the hidden side of American life than she anticipated. I could go on and on here I found this book so wonderful and upsetting, but I don't want to give away much of her actual experience or revelations. It did, however, open my eyes and my mind and make me think differently about a number of things, and for this reason, I recommend it highly. While it may not be a 'perfect' book, there is still so much that anyone and everyone can learn from it that I certainly hope it finds a wide audience, giving many who would otherwise never have one a peek into a whole different world.
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