Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

Barbara Ehrenreich

Apr 2010 · Sold by Metropolitan Books

About this ebook

The New York Times bestselling work of undercover reportage from our sharpest and most original social critic, with a new foreword by Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted

Millions of Americans work full time, year round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job—any job—can be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 an hour?

To find out, Ehrenreich left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered. Moving from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, she worked as a waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing-home aide, and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. She lived in trailer parks and crumbling residential motels. Very quickly, she discovered that no job is truly "unskilled," that even the lowliest occupations require exhausting mental and muscular effort. She also learned that one job is not enough; you need at least two if you int to live indoors.

Nickel and Dimed reveals low-rent America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity—a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate stratagems for survival. Read it for the smoldering clarity of Ehrenreich's perspective and for a rare view of how "prosperity" looks from the bottom. And now, in a new foreword, Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, explains why, twenty years on in America, Nickel and Dimed is more relevant than ever.

Ratings and reviews

If there was a ZERO star, Ehrenreich has earned it. This driveler's diatribe does not substitute for any social or economic understanding. Her presuppositions are that, de facto, socialism is good, and any business, big or otherwise, is bad - they're all out to screw the little guy. Even Jesus is a socialist to her. But emotivism runs rampant here - who can argue with her "experience," logic, education and reality notwithstanding? Bottom line, don't waste your money or your time.

Predictable at best; Ehrenreich already had the book written in her head prior to any field research. Her effort is no more transparent that Spurlock's hit piece on McDonalds. Additionally, the included 'A Reader's Guide' section continues Ehrenreich's predetermined goal via loaded questions of fairness and government dependence. Witness: page 244 "The workers in "Nickel and Dimed" receive almost no benefits -- no overtime pay, no retirement funds, and no health insurance. Is this fair?" Who said life was ever fair? The childish mentality that the author's question belies is comical at best. Is it fair that I'm not 6', blue-eyed, athletic, and a millionaire? NO! Who do I sue? Continuing page 244 "Do you think Americans make excessive demands on the family unit rather than calling for the government to help those in need?" And there we have it -- people are unable to fend for themselves and the government must take care of them. Ehrenreich's thought process borders on sickness.

This book shouldn't be allowed in k-12 schools. First it offends Christians and teaches kids how to clean their urine after using drugs. It's cleary sending an anti-Capitalist pro-Marxist message througout. I'd fire the teacher if they assigned this at my school!

About the author

Barbara Ehrenreich (1941-2022) was a bestselling author and political activist, whose more than a dozen books included Nickel and Dimed, which the New York Times described as "a classic in social justice literature", Bait and Switch, Bright-sided, This Land Is Their Land, Dancing In The Streets, and Blood Rites. An award-winning journalist, she frequently contributed to Harper's, The Nation, The New York Times, and TIME magazine. Ehrenreich was born in Butte, Montana, when it was still a bustling mining town. She studied physics at Reed College, and earned a Ph.D. in cell biology from Rockefeller University. Rather than going into laboratory work, she got involved in activism, and soon devoted herself to writing her innovative journalism.