Nickel and Dimed
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Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America is a book authored by Barbara Ehrenreich. Written from the perspective of the undercover journalist, it sets out to investigate the impact of the 1996 welfare reform on the "working poor" in the United States. In some ways it is similar to George Orwell's much earlier Down and Out in Paris and London as well as German investigative reporter Günter Wallraff's Ganz Unten (The Lowest of the Low).
The events related in the book took place between spring 1998 and summer 2000. The book was first published in 2001 by Metropolitan Books. An earlier version appeared as an article in the January 1999 issue of Harper's magazine. Ehrenreich later wrote a companion book, Bait and Switch (published September 2005), which discusses her attempt to find a white-collar job.
A stage adaptation by Joan Holden opened in 2002.
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[edit] Storyline
During a conversation with Lewis Lapham, editor of Harper's, Ehrenreich proposes a journalistic approach to the effects of welfare reform, an infiltration of the "unskilled" work market; unbeknownst to her, she would be the one investigating. Securing funds for unexpected expenses, approximately $1000, she leaves her home and her middle-class existence, with a few personal items and her car, for a few months of low wage work.
Starting off in her backyard, Ehrenreich searches for lodging and a job in neighboring Key West, Florida. Securing jobs at two restaurants, "Jerry's" and "Hearthside", fictitiously named, in consonance with other locations and people throughout the book, and a one-day housekeeping stint, she works for two weeks before succumbing to an extremely busy night at Jerry's; after walking out mid-shift, Ehrenreich heads to Portland, Maine, sans automobile, for a fresh start.
Beginning anew, Ehrenreich lands two more jobs after a four day search, one as an assistant at a nursing home and another as a maid at a cleaning franchise. Worn down by her work-load and work-related stress, she travels to her final destination, Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she is employed in the women's department at a Wal-Mart before ultimately ending her investigation. Even with the odds stacked on her side -- a college education culminating with a Ph.D. in biology, a car, no dependents (other than herself), and initial funds -- Ehrenreich fails to achieve a sustainable lifestyle.
[edit] Social issues
Throughout the exposé, Ehrenreich combats the "too lazy to work" and "a job will defeat poverty" ideals held by many middle and upper-class citizens. Highlighting problems with the argument, Ehrenreich reveals many of the difficulties associated with low wage jobs.
Foremost, she attacks the notion that low-wage jobs require "unskilled" labor by describing how the work required incredible feats of stamina, focus, memory, quick thinking, and fast learning. Constant and repeated movement creates or contributes to repetitive stress injury, pain must often be worked through to hold a job in a market with constant turnover, and the days are filled with degrading and uninteresting tasks (e.g. toilet-cleaning and shirt-reordering).
She argues "personality" tests, questionnaires designed to weed out "incompatible" potential employees, and urine drug tests, increasingly common in the low wage market, deter potential applicants and violate liberties while managerial apathy and austereness contribute to class separation and promote an unhealthy, stressful work environment.
She reports that "help needed" signs don't necessarily indicate an opening, more often their purpose is to sustain a pool of applicants to safeguard against rapid turnover of employees. She also argues one low wage job is often not enough to support one person (let alone a family); with inflating housing prices and stagnant wages, this practice increasingly becomes difficult to maintain. Many of the workers encountered in the book are forced to live with relatives, strangers in the same position, or in their cars in parking lots.
She concludes by responding to the frequent claim that low-wage workers, recipients of government or charitable services like welfare, food, and healthcare, are simply living off the generosity of others. Instead, she suggests, we live off their generosity:
- When someone works for less pay than she can live on ... she has made a great sacrifice for you ... The "working poor" ... are in fact the major philanthropists of our society. They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high. To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor, to everyone else. (p. 221)
[edit] Criticism
Criticisms of Nickel and Dimed include:
- Ehrenreich insisted on living alone, although she could have saved money by sharing a room and splitting rent with other low-wage workers.
- Due to her distrust of religious organizations and despite the urging of coworkers and peers, she refused to accept money of private charities because many are church-based or religiously affiliated.
- She failed in her efforts to befriend her fellow workers and develop relationships and a support network to help sustain her.
- She implies the recreational use of marijuana should not be a deterrant for hiring someone, and makes an argument for cannabis legalization.
- She makes arguments against the meager wages paid by corporations without considering economic rationales such as overhead and insurance, without which the Merry Maids employees, specifically, would not have been legally allowed to work.
- Although Ehrenreich considered the book to be a piece of undercover reporting (a.k.a. Nellie Bly journalism), as the above Columbia Journalism Review link indicates, several professional journalists took issue with labeling the book "journalism" because of its lack of objectivity.[citations needed]
Some critics have argued she intentionally failed so she would be vindicated in believing the situation was impossible. For example, when her first job as a waitress exhausted and frustrated her, she walked out and quit without warning; critics have argued that "real people" don't have the opportunity to leave poor-paying and stressful jobs.[citations needed]
[edit] See also
- George Orwell - who wrote a British equivalent, Down and Out in Paris and London
- Polly Toynbee - who wrote a British equivalent, Hard Work: Life in Low-Pay Britain
