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

Amazon.com's Best of 2001

Essayist and cultural critic Barbara Ehrenreich has always specialized in turning received wisdom on its head with intelligence, clarity, and verve. With some 12 million women being pushed into the labor market by welfare reform, she decided to do some good old-fashioned journalism and find out just how they were going to survive on the wages of the unskilled--at $6 to $7 an hour, only half of what is considered a living wage. So she did what millions of Americans do, she looked for a job and a place to live, worked that job, and tried to make ends meet.

As a waitress in Florida, where her name is suddenly transposed to "girl," trailer trash becomes a demographic category to aspire to with rent at $675 per month. In Maine, where she ends up working as both a cleaning woman and a nursing home assistant, she must first fill out endless pre-employment tests with trick questions such as "Some people work better when they're a little bit high." In Minnesota, she works at Wal-Mart under the repressive surveillance of men and women whose job it is to monitor her behavior for signs of sloth, theft, drug abuse, or worse. She even gets to experience the humiliation of the urine test.

So, do the poor have survival strategies unknown to the middle class? And did Ehrenreich feel the "bracing psychological effects of getting out of the house, as promised by the wonks who brought us welfare reform?" Nah. Even in her best-case scenario, with all the advantages of education, health, a car, and money for first month's rent, she has to work two jobs, seven days a week, and still almost winds up in a shelter. As Ehrenreich points out with her potent combination of humor and outrage, the laws of supply and demand have been reversed. Rental prices skyrocket, but wages never rise. Rather, jobs are so cheap as measured by the pay that workers are encouraged to take as many as they can. Behind those trademark Wal-Mart vests, it turns out, are the borderline homeless. With her characteristic wry wit and her unabashedly liberal bent, Ehrenreich brings the invisible poor out of hiding and, in the process, the world they inhabit--where civil liberties are often ignored and hard work fails to live up to its reputation as the ticket out of poverty. --Lesley Reed

Book Description

Millions of Americans work for poverty-level wages, and one day Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that any job equals a better life. But how can anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 to $7 an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich moved from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, taking the cheapest lodgings available and accepting work as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing-home aide, and Wal-Mart salesperson. She soon discovered that even the lowliest occupations require exhausting mental and physical efforts. And one job is not enough; you need at least two if you intend to live indoors.Nickel and Dimed reveals low-wage America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generositya land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate strategies for survival. Instantly acclaimed for its insight, humor, and passion, this book is changing the way America perceives its working poor.

Customer Reviews:

Should be required reading!.......2007-10-19

Excellent book! It gives a voice to many Americans who currently are not being heard - the working poor. Should be required reading for everyone.

interesting perspective.......2007-10-17

I read this years ago but came across it again while packing. I have an awful memory but for some reason this book has stayed with me. I work and go to school so reading about her experiences with being a server and cleaning brought back memories (not good ones). I enjoyed reading about her struggles on getting by and having to deal with her family while she was away. She is a journalist so that had made me feel like jumping into that career even more so at the time. I do however feel like she cheated during her "investigation," because she had ran out of money or needed something from her "previous" life. I must also add that she made good points about working for certain big companies and how corporate places treat their employees. I don't know if her book would pertain to how things are today but I'm sure some things never change.

A Necessary Read.......2007-10-14

Some Amazon Online customers disagree with my fondness for Nickel and Dimed. Various readers consider the author to be elitist and sheltered. These people consider comments such as, "I am, of course, very different from the people who normally fill America's least attractive jobs," to be arrogant. However, these comments can also be interpreted as Ehrenreich's admittance of her obvious differences from most low-wage workers, as well as her ability to give credit to her newfound co-workers. This reader goes on to criticize the author's choice of locations; Florida and Maine especially, because as he claimed, they will always be more expensive than most places. This is not necessarily factual. It will always be difficult- virtually impossible- to squeak by when earning $2.73 per hour plus tips at a low-traffic restaurant. This is inevitable whether the restaurant is in Key West, Florida (a supposedly "rich" city) or a rural area, where the cost of living will require other fees. Yet another complaint from this reader is that Ehrenreich is racist in her statement, "My worry that the Latinos might be hogging all the crap jobs and substandard housing for themselves." On the surface, this comment absolutely sounds racist. Throughout the entire book, though, Ehrenreich systemically drops these types of comments with the intention of a) being sarcastic and b) exemplifying how easy it is to develop stereotypes of people (i.e. oppressing others) when you, yourself, are oppressed. As seen, the author cannot be blamed for these particular wrongdoings.

An Important Read.......2007-10-09

For anyone who did not have to struggle through a minimum wage job as an adult, this book is for you. Way too many Americans think people can survive on minimum wage. This will humble that opinion and identify your misconceptions.

Good read.......2007-10-05

I had to read this book for class and i must say it was a good read. extremely easy to read and equally funny.

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The Bible of the Living Wage Movement

Living Wage : Building a Fair Economy
Robert Pollin , and Stephanie Luce
Manufacturer: New Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1565844092

Book Description

An accessible and provocative argument for a national "living wage." "The living wage campaign is the most interesting (and under-reported) grassroots enterprise to emerge since the civil rights movement."--Robert Kuttner, editor of The American Prospect. With campaigns for a living wage sweeping the country, Robert Pollin and Stephanie Luce's timely and powerful defense of its practicality and success is now available in an updated paperback edition. Hailed as "the bible of the living wage movement," The Living Wage shows how living-wage proposals are affordable for both cities and employers, and reveals how they can play an important role in reversing the twenty-five-year decline in wages experienced by most working people in America. Written by leading experts, The Living Wage is a realistic and accessible examination of this vital--and growing--movement for economic justice in the United States.

Customer Reviews:

The Bible of the Living Wage Movement.......1999-08-21

Review of The Living Wage: Building a Fair Economy by Robert Pollin and Stephanie Luce

Every so often a work of contemporary issue analysis comes along that illuminates the often-arcane world of professional activists in language that renders it accessible to the general public. In The Living Wage: Building a Fair Economy (New Press), economists Robert Pollin and Stephanie Luce have not only provided a long-overdue assessment of the fifty-plus living wage campaigns across the country, they have created an invaluable tool for the organizers currently engaged in those efforts. Since the book's printing, I've found grateful readers and dog-eared copies in campaign offices from Montana to Maryland.

Since the modern living wage movement began with the passage of the Baltimore living wage ordinance in 1994, more than twenty-five cities and counties have passed living wage laws, and campaigns are underway in over two dozen more jurisdictions, making the effort "the most interesting (and under-reported) grassroots enterprise to emerge since the civil rights movement" according to the journalist Robert Kuttner. Defenders of other political movements of the last thirty years might disagree, but there's no question that the thousands of workers who have received a raise or new benefits due to a living wage law appreciate their significance.

The campaigns, which begin with the idea that no one working full time should be forced to live in poverty, require businesses receiving public dollars to pay wages significantly above the minimum wage, usually enough to raise a family at or above the poverty level. Many organizers would prefer to cover more workers by raising the minimum wage for all jobs, but where that is not legal or politically viable, the efforts target jobs created with public dollars -- namely public employees, employees working for public contractors, and in many jurisdictions, workers employed in businesses receiving public subsidies, whether industrial revenue bonds, low-interest loans, or tax abatements.

Most of the campaigns have met with fierce resistance from both the business community and elected officials, who have fought the passage of ordinances and worked to evade them after approval. Baltimore quickly moved to hire workfare workers for city contract work immediately after the passage of is ordinance. Minneapolis has found creative ways to distribute corporate subsidies without requiring recipients to comply with the laws. Pollin and Luce, who headed the economics team that researched the cost of the Los Angeles Living Wage Ordinance, convincingly debunk opponents' claims that living wage laws add enormous costs to financially strapped municipalities and create unemployment among the very populations they are intended to help. They cite an initial study of the effects of the Baltimore ordinance by the Preamble Center for Public Policy. Based on phone interviews with contractors, Mark Weisbrot and Michelle Sforza-Roderick found that the cost of winning city contract bids did not increase after the living wage ordinance took effect. Increased worker productivity and reduced absenteeism brought on by higher wages combined with market competition for contracts to hold steady the costs to the city. In addition, no companies reported laying off workers or hiring fewer than they would have without a living wage ordinance. Overall, after two years of experience, the predictions of living wage opponents that the law would increase unemployment and raise costs to the city were not borne out.

Pollin and Luce convincingly explain the methodology they use estimate the cost of a living wage ordinance, and prove that - despite opponents' claims - the costs of ordinances is restricted to a small percentage of a municipality's budget, and propose solutions to minimize the cost even more. They demonstrate the high social value by showing that the benefits of such laws - wage increases to the lowest-wage workers - are concentrated, while the costs are diffuse, spread over the entire tax base.

The authors also produce a withering critique of the conventional business subsidy approach to economic development practiced by the federal government and imitated by most cities and states, and they persuasively examine the social costs of outsourcing by municipalities. Instead, they propose a "high-road" alternative strategy that prioritizes high wages and high productivity by investing in public schools, worker training and retention, public safety, and efficient physical infrastructure. Living wage laws complement this strategy by removing firms' incentives to compete by paying poverty wages, forcing them to compete by increasing worker productivity.

Central labor councils and affiliated locals have invested in living wage campaigns, usually in conjunction with chapters of ACORN, the New Party, and civic and religious leaders, for a variety of reasons. The efforts have proven to be an effective vehicle to organize community and religious support for raising wages for workers in many of the lowest-paid sectors. Leaders of higher-paid locals whose workers are not directly affected realize that raising the wage floor strengthens their positions during bargaining. By covering all city contracts, the living wage laws erode municipalities' incentives for contracting out. By insisting that policy initiatives be judged by their effectiveness at creating good jobs, the campaigns raise an important challenge to the conventional business subsidy model of economic development. And they broadcast labor's role as the defenders of working families - both organized and unorganized - to the media and the general public.

Pollin and Luce have produced an excellent work; reading this book and engaging in a local living wage campaign are worthy New Years' resolutions for any labor activist.

Other resources (partial list)

National contacts: ACORN, Jen Kern: (202) 547-2500 AFL-CIO, Christine Silvia: (202) 637-5177 New Party, Adam Glickman: (718) 246-3713

Local contacts: Boston Jobs and Living Wage Campaign, Lisa Clauson, (617) 436-7100 Solidarity Sponsoring Committee, Kerry Miciotto, (410) 837-3458 Chicago Living Wage Campaign, Jon Green: (312) 939-4136 Cleveland SEIU Local 47, Willie Howard, (216) 621-0995 Metropolitan Detroit AFL-CIO, Joyce Lartigue, (313) 896-2600 Duluth Coalition for a Living Wage, Erik Peterson: (218) 722-0577 Los Angeles Living Wage Coalition, Madeline Janis-Aparicio: (213) 486-9880 Maryland State Living Wage Campaign, Steve Smitson, (301) 270-0442 Campaign for a Sustainable Milwaukee, Bill Dempsey, (414) 444-0525 Minneapolis/St. Paul Living Wage Campaigns, Progressive Minnesota: (612) 641-6199 Montgomery County (MD) Living Wage Campaign, Ann Swinburn, (301) 495-7004 Missoula (MT) Living Wage Campaign, Derek Birnie: (406) 728-5297 New Haven Living Wage Campaign, Andrea Cole, (203) 624-5161 Oakland Living Wage Campaign, Jim DuPont, (510) 893-3181 Portland Jobs with Justice, Nancy Haque: (503) 236-5573 Working Partnerships USA (San Jose, CA), Robert Dhondrup: (408) 269-7872

Book Description

Examines the historical evolution of the minimum wage, emphsizing that the nature of minimum wage arguments has shifted over time with the decline of organized labor.

Customer Reviews:

A good read!.......2001-03-28

Timeless Places: Morocco is an enjoyable read, which takes the reader (and the viewer) to a land which is filled with mystery and mysticism. The language is poetic, and the photography is breathtaking.

Book Description

The Clinton administration has claimed its proposal to increase the minimum wage would not affect employment; other research supports that a higher minimum wage means fewer jobs.

How Living Wage Laws Affect Low-Wage Workers and Low-Income Families

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How Living Wage Laws Affect Low-Wage Workers and Low-Income Families
David Neumark
Manufacturer: Public Policy Institute of California
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1582130434

Product Description

Since 1994, nearly 40 cities in the United States have passed living wage ordinances. These ordinances mandate that businesses under contract with the city, and in some cases businesses receiving assistance from the city, pay employees a wage sufficient to lift their families out of poverty. This report examines the actual experiences of cities implementing such laws, focusing in particular on the following questions: Do living wage laws raise wages for at least some low-wage workers? Are wage gains for low-wage workers offset by either reductions in employment or the amount of hours worked as employers seek to accommodate the additional labor costs? Do living wage laws achieve their stated policy objective of improving economic outcomes for low-income families? Do the laws reduce urban poverty? Given the stated antipoverty goal of living wage campaigns, why do the laws generally restrict coverage to city contractors, rather than imposing wage floors for broad groups of workers?

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The Politics of Minimum Wage
Jerold Waltman
Manufacturer: University of Illinois Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The Fundamentals of Minimum Wage Fixing
Francois Eyraund , and Catherine Saget
Manufacturer: International Labor Office
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 9221170144

Raise The Floor: Wages and Policies That Work for All of Us

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Everyone, rich or poor should read this book
They don't work for the employers....
Every member of Congress should read this book!

Raise The Floor: Wages and Policies That Work for All of Us
Holly Sklar , Laryssa Mykyta , and Susan Wefald
Manufacturer: Ms Foundation for Women
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0971082200

Book Description

Most Americans believe a job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it. "Raise The Floor," shows us how we can translate that belief into reality. An annual minimum wage income of $10,712 a year just doesn't add up. The book presents national minimum needs budgets for individuals and families to meet basic needs such as food, housing and health care. "Raise The Floor" shows minimum wage critics are wrong, demonstrates how good wages are good business, and recommends raising the minimum wage to $8. That's what a single worker needs to meet their minimum needs working full time. That's what it takes just to match the minimum wage of 1968, adjusting for inflation. To assure that all working families can meet basic needs, the book explains how we can supplement a higher minimum wage with improved child care, health care, housing and Earned Income Tax Credit policies, and other practical solutions.

Customer Reviews:

Everyone, rich or poor should read this book.......2005-11-26

For the past 5 years, even with all the corporate scandals and a worse than Vietnam war killing America, never before in U.S. history has our government recklessly hit the gas pedal on giving more "tax cut" handouts for the wealthy elite and big business scoundrels. I'd rather socialize wealth than socialize poverty and terrorism any day. Anyone who thinks otherwise is only looking forward to turning America into a business concentration camp.

They don't work for the employers...........2004-07-09

From the editorial review:
"In a January 2002 poll of likely voters, Americans overwhelmingly identified raising the minimum wage as key to stimulating the economy."
And of course, this poll result should translate into federal policy, for surely each one of those likely voters has a strong background in economic theory.
"...$8 an hour-the amount a single, full-time worker needs to meet minimum needs."
Minimum needs...like the "religious services" mentioned above?

For the rational Homo sapiens seeking an understanding of how minimum wage laws affect the economy, I recommend Capitalism by George Reisman.

Every member of Congress should read this book!.......2001-09-17

As Congress prepares to debate the national minimum wage this Fall, there couldn't be a more timely or compelling book. At first I was a bit surprised to see this coming from the Ms. Foundation for Women, and while it may be an expansion of their advocacy work, they seem to have assembled an experienced, knowledgable group of researchers and writers to put this study together. It is clear, readable, convincing. Even the manner in which tables and data are presented is easy on the eye (and the head). But as I was drawn into the book, I began to see that looking at an issue like the minimum wage, one needs to do so understanding its history (and the authors do this compactly but thoroughly) and its relevance today (and the tie-in to the Living Wage movement is vivid and convincing). This is a book not only about female or male workers, but families, and beyond that, to the values this nation is supposed to stand for...and it made me so fired up that this country still keeps hard working people poor that I wrote both my senators about it. I hope they read it, and I hope you do too...

Below the Breadline: Living on the Minimum Wage

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A review of Below the Breadline: Living on the Minimum Wage

Below the Breadline: Living on the Minimum Wage
Fran Abrams
Manufacturer: Profile Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Customer Reviews:

A review of Below the Breadline: Living on the Minimum Wage.......2005-03-04

I've never been to the United Kingdom, so I'm not so sure that I can totally relate to the types of things Fran Abrams encounters in her book, Below the Breadline: Living on the Minimum Wage, but I have tried to survive before on a minimum wage job, so I had a good idea of what, maybe, to expect going into the subject of existing on a meager income.
In fact, as the budget summaries at the end of each section in this book suggest, daily life is much more expensive in the United Kingdom than it is in the United States. How many single people here do you know that spend an average of £136.83, equivalent to over $260, in food costs every month? This aspect certainly adds to the intrigue of Below the Breadline, and helps you understand better the challenges Abrams faces, challenges much tougher than those of the inspiration for her book, Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.
As we meet Fran in the beginning of the book, she is going through the process of finding a job as a housekeeper at the Savoy Hotel in London at or around the minimum wage. This is a process we will see repeated twice more, once in a town called Doncaster, where she is a temp worker at a pickle factory, and then again in a town just outside of Aberdeen, in Scotland, where she provides care for the elderly residents of a nursing home facility called The Towers. Apparently there are ample minimum wage jobs no matter where you live, because Fran lands the first job she finds in all three municipalities.
The basis for having these minimum wage jobs is somewhat of a project for Abrams. Simply put, see if you can survive on a meager income for a month at (or most times, below) £4.10 per hour, while providing a roof over your head, ample sustenance, and keeping somewhat of a social life outside of work. Unfortunately, it seems that all of these issues never coincide with one another throughout Below the Breadline, and this was one of the major problems I had with this book. It really makes it harder to put her attempts at living this lifestyle in perspective when we read about each particular job for twenty or thirty pages, then finally get around to the living conditions she encounters outside the workplace for another ten pages or so, then reading for a page and a half about the social life she carries on in each city. There is a disconnect between professional and personal that makes it hard to combine the two into an actual account of what's going on from day to day.
One element that adds a nice twist to the book, and one that isn't really found in Ehrenreich's book, is the relationships and communication that Abrams seems to find in the workplace, something not normally found in minimum wage work, and it really takes away some of the darkness of the situations she finds herself in. The whole culture of minimum wage seems to be much different in the United Kingdom. This is definitely an area that is used to dealing with economic hardship and long-term unemployment much more than we do in the United States. Those with minimum wage jobs in the United Kingdom aren't the same people, typically, that you would find here. They, for the most part, are not first-timers to the workforce, and they also seem to be more transient, with many, especially in London, not native to the U.K.
The third section of Below the Breadline really serves as a good example of the relationships Abrams finds, because taking care of elderly persons is something that a great deal of people can relate to. Abrams has this wonderful ability to connect the reader to both her feelings about the residents of the Towers, as well as the emotions that many of the residents seem to show.
"What really matters, of course, is whether people actually feel better off." Abrams uses this quote to try and summarize the whole system of the "poverty line," but really the "poverty line" is just a percentage of annual income. The different economic conditions in each of the three sections of this book show just how hard it would be for the government to establish a "living wage." How can you create a "living wage," when you cannot create a cost of living that can be applied to the entire United Kingdom? And someone is always going to be living under the "poverty line." Abrams suggests that the minimum wage must be increased, but most certainly, as the wage goes up, so too will the cost of living. It is not as simple as increasing the minimum wage, but there are really no viable alternatives set forth in this book.
When reading Ehrenreich, I noticed that there is somewhat of a fictional side to her efforts in that the author only deals with one facet of living on minimum wage, and that is focused solely on that of the workplace. Abrams' account is similar to this in that she never seems to take advantage of social outlets like churches, private outreach services, or welfare programs, something someone trying to survive on the minimum wage would most certainly do. Instead, she seems to purposely "stack the deck" against herself, almost guaranteeing a result suited to her literary goals. This may ultimately sell more copies of Below the Breadline, but it definitely made me take her whole experience in a slightly different perspective than if she had been faithful to the project, which should have not ignored these glaring omissions. By doing this, she has been deceitful to those who are actually trying to survive on the minimum wage, and makes the reader less sympathetic to the problem.

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Bound by Our Constitution
Vivien Hart
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 069103480X

Book Description

Basing her analysis on primary research, Hart reconstructs legal strategies and policy decisions that revolved around the recognition of women as workers and the public definition of gender roles. Contrasting seismic shifts and expansion in American minimum wage policy with indifference and eventual abolition in Britain, she challenges preconceptions about the constraints of American constitutionalism versus British flexibility. Though constitutional requirements did block and frustrate women's attempts to gain fair wages, they also, as Hart demonstrates, created a terrain in the United States for principled debate about women, work, and the state--and a momentum for public policy--unparalleled in Britain. Hart's book should be of interest to policy, labor, women's, and legal historians, to political scientists, and to students of gender issues, law, and social policy.

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What difference does a written constitution make to public policy? How have women workers fared in a nation bound by constitutional principles, compared with those not covered by formal, written guarantees of fair procedure or equitable outcome? To investigate these questions, Vivien Hart traces the evolution of minimum wage policies in the United States and Britain from their common origins in women's politics around 1900 to their divergent outcomes in our day. She argues, contrary to common wisdom, that the advantage has been with the American constitutional system rather than the British. Basing her analysis on primary research, Hart reconstructs legal strategies and policy decisions that revolved around the recognition of women as workers and the public definition of gender roles. Contrasting seismic shifts and expansion in American minimum wage policy with indifference and eventual abolition in Britain, she challenges preconceptions about the constraints of American constitutionalism versus British flexibility. Though constitutional requirements did block and frustrate women's attempts to gain fair wages, they also, as Hart demonstrates, created a terrain in the United States for principled debate about women, work, and the state--and a momentum for public policy--unparalleled in Britain. Hart's book should be of interest to policy, labor, women's, and legal historians, to political scientists, and to students of gender issues, law, and social policy.

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