Rating: 
Summary: A snapshot of the working underclass
Review: I really enjoyed this book. It is wonderfully written, in the literate, witty, and genuine style that the author is well known for in other writings. The author exposes the harsh realities of the 21st century service economy--an economy built on the backs of permanently low-wage workers. She shows why workfare is not the panacea some politicians claim. The primary weakness is the author's often naive analysis of the market factors driving the modern service economy. Also, she seems wedded to the middle-class assumption that everyone is entitled to live alone in a furnished apartment--or, in her case, a succession of short-term rentals. had she shared an apartment with a working roommate, husband, or boyfriend, her economic situation would not have been so dire. two or three people making $8 an hour full-time can afford to share a suitably sized-apartment in any of the areas where she conducted her research--except notoriously expensive key west. isn't this what science post-doctoral do? also: suppose she did her research in a community where low-wage service workers are in demand and paid $10/hour plus benefits? but her overall research is excellent, and i agree with her conclusion that there are too-many poorly paid service workers in our economy who for whatever reason have trouble making ends meet.
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Summary: An Amazingly Insightful Work of Underground Journalism
Review: I had never heard of Barbara Ehrenreich before I read this book, but I'll certainly never forget her now. This book touched me, and riveted me. Her words are clear; full of meaning and emotion. Her observations on the necessity (or lack thereof) of management in retail are especially incisive. Nickel and Dimed shines a necessary spotlight on the lives of the less-privileged. After reading it, hopefully you will be just a bit more patient with your waitress (and possibly a better tipper).
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Summary: Ehrenreich puts her money where her mouth is
Review: One has to admire Barbara Ehrenreich for not just sitting in a comfortable chair and complaining about poverty in America. Instead, she gets out in the world of low wage jobs, limits her own resources and experience and sees what happens. It's not a pretty story. It's too bad that one can't get the policy wonks at the Cato Institute, for instance, to try her experiment as well. What Ehrenreich does in this book is effectively debunk the notion that anyone can succeed in the American economy because the "free market" provides everyone with an equal opportunity. Instead, her experiences indicate that most of the poor are trapped in a world of long hours at mind-numbing, body destroying jobs which fail to pay the rent and provide little opportunity for educational improvement. Moreover, because wages are so low, these workers cannot even save money to improve their lot. It certainly calls into question the notion that prudent frugality and hard work are all that a worker needs to rise up in the American economy. Another important issue raised by this book is the effect these menial jobs have on the psyche of the people who do them. The "adulation" the maids have for their boss is heart-rending but hardly surprising. Worse still are the clear class lines that Ehrenreich notes. One feels appalled at the maid who sees the rich homes she cleans as an incentive to work hard so that she may eventually have the same thing. In a fair world, she might, but the odds are stacked completely against her. One is equally appalled, however, by the cynicism of the remaining maids who KNOW that they will never reach that level regardless of how hard they work. This book is certainly an eye opener and a book to suggest to anyone who spouts economic theory at you. What those people never seem to understand is that the "market" is made up of millions of individuals operating as best as they can in an environment that contains far more factors than can ever be graphed on the economists chart. It's time we had more humanity and realized that rather than insisting on the perfection of a truly free market which will never exist.
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Summary: Thoughtful book
Review: I have worked with the poor for a number of years and over time have read many books that try to describe their plight. Ehrenrich does a superb job of telling us about the "working poor." This book is engaging to read -- better than most novels -- yet has an important message to convey. Her insight on philanthropy on the last page of the book is an "O. Henry" finish. I highly recommend this book.
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Summary: Heroic sacrifice to see what it is really like
Review: I've often wondered how the poor manage to get by. Unfortunately, there is so little on the subject. Before reading the Nickel and Dimed book, I ran across an article in the March 30, 1998 issue of The Nation on the Hungry Elderly. And an article about people who can't afford medication. They periodically end up in an emergency room, where they are stabilized, and then get kicked out. Anyway, the Nickel and Dimed book provided a lot of insight into how the $7 - $9 wage earners live -- minimal dental care, a whole family living in a room, etc. And how they feel about that (they tend to blame themselves, and probably aren't aware that they are earning considerably less in inflation-adjusted terms than in the 1970's; meanwhile corporate earnings grow rapidly (a 64 - fold increase in S&P 500 earnings since WWII according to a Fidelity ad I saw 2 or 3 years ago).
In 1998, 30% of the workforce earns $8/hour or less, according to the Economic Policy Institute. So what the book describes is not a rareexperience.
I was disappointed that there were so few resources and web sites given to further explore this subject. (Several newspaper articles and books were cited though).
One reviewer said you won't be able to put it down. I agree, be warned.
Rating:
Summary: A revealing glimpse of the so-called "working poor"
Review: In NICKLED AND DIMED Barbara Ehrenreich points out that 60% of the U.S. work force makes less than $10 an hour (probably closer to $7). In other words, tens of millions of Americans toil at soul-destroying jobs that pay a pittance so that the middle and upper classes can live in comfort and not have to worry about the scut work that keeps this savagely unequal society afloat. Ehrenreich rightly identifies low-wage workers as America's real philanthropists. Her investigation of the world of dead-end work in Florida, Maine, and Minnesota is exceedingly courageous, morally and politically profound, and beautifully articulated. (Ehrenreich is one of our finest prose stylists.) In a media universe rife with pro-corporatist cant spewed out by the usual gaggle of lickspittle "journalists," Ehrenreich tells it like it really is. How refreshing to hear the truth told in a culture awash in denial, evasion, and lies.
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Summary: The Upton Sinclair of Key West
Review: Just when we were tiring of reading about Jurgus Rudkus trudging long miles to the slaughterhouses of Chicago through subzero temperatures which made his ears fall off, section by section, here comes a perkier revision of the same thesis from the warmer climes of Key West, and then across the country up to Maine, and thence to Missesota, as Ehrenreich takes watiressing, Maid Service, and Wal Mart jobs to get in touch with the working poor. Former Wisconsin Senator William Proxmire used to do the same thing for part of each Summer, to get in touch with his contituents. There's an argument that more people should do this. Ehrenreich is a very gifted writer, especially good at the penetrating comment, for example her observation of small white crosses lining the roadside to signify "particularly effective head on collisions." Her pro-union sympathies come out in her bias for comparing what the employee gets with what the employer is charging to the customer. The Maid gets $6.45/hour, but the franchise owner bills her out at $25/hr. While making critical comments about this, Ehrenreich at the same time notes that the Maid place provides cars, job assignments, cleaning kits, and video training to each employee. Don't forget worker's comp. and personal bonding to allow work in people's homes. Isn't there a cost to these things? But her assignment is not to be a franchise owner for a month, so it's just not her focus. Staying within her segment of the worker community, she points out that the food store wanted her to give a urine sample with her application, and that more than 80% of U.S. employers now require that. While critical of this, again, she does not point out the destruction that can be caused to any size business by drug-dealing or drug-taking employees, especially when they steal from employers or customers of those employers to support their expensive habits, which the poor really have no way of affording for long. But let's not make a business-perspecitve counterpoint for everything in this book. It stands on its own and it sends an important message that many people who are desperately poor only appear to be making it, and use the camouflage of their jobs to hide it. This seems to put an even heavier burden on the employers who provide those jobs, and the customers who pay for them, to treat these people fairly. One also gets the sense that Ehrenreich herself experienced a personal wake up call as a result of this project, and that she may not in the future sit in New York restaurants nibbling expensive salads with Lewis Lapham without feeling a little more grateful for the hands that made it, or at least a little more sardonic when thinking back to the scene in this book with the chef in the fmaily restaurant whipping frozen steaks at the wall to thaw them out as quickly as possible. Her suggestion that economists and welfare reformers actually meet the people who "cook their hash browns and clean their rooms" during their vacations is a sound one. Now I'm looking forward to her book about spending a month with an accountant, an owner of a small HVAC installation company, and a high school principal, whose latent virtues can also be similarly mined.
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Summary: Nickel and Dimed by Ehrenreich
Review: I have over 20 years experience working with poor people in a number of different settings. This is the very best book that I have read in recent years on the topic of the working poor. It is a very quick read--and should be required of every legislator who believes welfare reform or welfare to work is a humane answer to our human obligations.
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Summary: the bald truth about wage slavery
Review: Barbara Ehrenreich in her latest work again sustains her position as one of the United States most effective social commentators. This is a work which calls upon Americans to recognize their tacit exploitation of a substantial number of their seemingly invisible fellow citizens who are trapped in poverty by limited wage jobs. Ehrenreich's academic background comes through as she proves an excellent teacher. She presents the factual statistics at the end of the book in its conclusion where the reader more likely to appreciate and absorb their meaning after having read anecdotes from the reality they represent. Her brilliant (and somewhat daunting) willingness to experience this gruelling existence in various mileus adds credibility to the outrage which she expresses. This should be required reading for most Americans in order to instill some sense of social consciousness and demand for justice. As Ehrenreich eloquently states, we should be ashamed, not guilty, as a society for the unconscionable circumstances in which so many in this rich nation are hopelessly trapped.
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Summary: A must read for anyone who's ever hired a maid
Review: It looks like this book hasn't received the attention it deserves--which is too bad. This is a real eye-opener...an exploration of the lives of America's working poor. Instead of just talking about minimum wagers--Ehrenreich joins their ranks, working "undercover" as a waitress, housecleaner, nursing home attendant, and Wal-Mart "associate." Her disturbing findings: she must hold down at least two jobs, even in this "prosperous" economy, in order to barely get by. (Actually, she earns over minimum-wage and still struggles--a fact that should alert people that the minimum wage is not, in fact, a living wage.)Ehrenreich is funny, honest, and really human. I read part of the book as first published in Harper's, and the rest of it in one sitting.
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