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

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America | Barbara Ehrenreich | Great bookseller

books:

Nickel and Dimed: ...

	Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America Barbara Ehrenreich Metropolitan Books, 2001 - 224 pages average customer review:based on 1076 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

Our sharpest and most original social critic goes "undercover" as an unskilled worker to reveal the dark side of American prosperity.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. You will never see anything -- from a motel bathroom to a restaurant meal -- in quite the same way again.

for more information click here

It IS Realistic!

This was me! For those who reviewed the book and said that Ehrenreich was "unrealistic", I'm going to share my story. Several years ago my ex-boyfriend and I could have been in the book; we were each working a full-time job and he also had TWO part-time jobs at the same time (one after his full-time job and another on the weekends). Our jobs were in electronic sales at a big chain store and telemarketing which at the time paid $7.50 an hour. Yet we were still unable to make ends meet. After rent on our shoebox-efficieny apartment and utility bills, quarters for laundry and bus fare (we couldn't even afford a car! And even if we could have, we would not have been able to afford insurance AND gas.), we had hardly any money leftover for groceries and certainly NO money leftover for luxuries such as new clothes and new shoes (we did shop at thrift stores, but only when we really needed more outfits). After we ran out of selling our CDs, books, and magazines, which we sold for bus fare to be able to get to and from jobs, we resorted to selling plasma which paid $20 at the time and was enough for two weeks worth of groceries. Everything else that we owned, a mattress on the floor, linen, and kitchen supplies (which we deemed were the necessities) had all been purchased at a Goodwill also with the help of a friend of mine who worked there and used his employee discount for us.
I'm sure people would have thought my ex-boyfriend and I were lazy and "slackers" but we were working so HARD and pinching pennies and we couldn't understand why we still couldn't afford a nicer apartment, a car, decent clothes and to eat well. I shudder to think how much more of a hell our lives would have been if we had had children to boot!
Unfortunately the strain of our financial situation did our relatonship in. He moved back in with his single mother and I moved back in with my grandparents as we went our seperate ways. Sadly, living with my grandparents rent-free didn't really make my life easier. I was still working a minimum wage job and trying to save money while also helping them with expenses. Then the worst thing happened, I got another job in telemarketing and lost my voice completely two weeks into training which was followed by strep throat; this latest for a month! Needless to say I lost my job because I couldn't even make it through training. Of course I had no health insurance either. I realized there was no way I could ever afford a car to get a better job off the bus route or to move out into my own apartment anytime soon. Finally, I made the desperate decison to enlist in the Army.
My life is completely different now that I am out of the Army and a civilian again. From the Army I gained skills and knowledge in a specific field which are marketable and thanks to the Army College Fund and Montgomery G.I. Bill I am currently enrolled in a graduate program. Finanically I am better off now then I ever was in my life, but I never forget for a minute that I can end up again where I was before the Army, (selling plasma for food)...even with a Master's degree. Unfortunately there are countless reasons why some people would not be able to make the same decisions to join the military. For many people that is not an option. So where does that leave them?
I LOVE this book because I think it IS realistic and dead-on and I should know, I have lived it!

for more information click here

Great bookseller

Gave the book as a gift...didn't read it but the reviews on it are great. I'm reviewing the bookseller. The book was here very quickly in excellent condition.

Politics aside--a book every upper income person should read

Author Barbara Ehrenreich spends a year as an experiment living on minimum wage and writing about it as a journalist. The book chronicles her year working in 3 states (Florida, Maine, and Minnesota) as, among other things, a waitress, maid, and Walmart employee. From the beginning she makes two caveats: that she has her own car (many minimum wage workers don't) and she won't go hungry (e.g. she will dip into her ATM before she will starve).

I thoughourly enjoyed this book. It was fascinating to see, fully see, another side of life that I thought I knew but really didn't. These people work hard, very hard, are good people, honest people and watch out for each other as best they can with what little they have.

Every dollar counts. I remember the Merry Maid who ate hot dog rolls brought from home for lunch because not only did she have no money, but no time since the work schedule was so tight. Decent housing is nearly impossible to find. All this and the author didn't even have to worry about chilcare costs. Everyone on minimum wage has to work at least two jobs to survive at even a subsistence level and live with friends, relatives, share a couch, a trailer. It's bad.

This book has changed my outlook toward minimum wage workers, made me a better tipper, and a much kinder and more thoughtful customer. I recommend it to anyone just as an aid to your humanity.

for more information click here