Nickel and Dimed

In Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed it is made apparent that having a good job does not simply mean that one is able to provide for their family, or even themselves. Through her investigative journalism, Ehrenreich paints a bleak picture of America and her low-wage worker. Ehrenreich’s book is focused on three locations, scattered about the country. Through these experiences she provides an opinion, though possibly slanted at times, of what life may be like as one of these low-wage workers.

She begins her investigation in Key West, Florida. Here she is soon given the very job she didn’t want, waitress. Soon after receiving this job she realizes the need for an extra income and is forced to take another waitress job. This leaves her working from 8 am to 10 pm each day, this strain leaves Ehrenreich extremely tired each day and she soon quits one waitress job to clean at a local hotel. Still suffering, she investigates the lives of her coworkers and finds many of them live with family or in their car to save money.

Next Ehrenreich moves to Maine, where she quickly gets a job as a dietary aid in a nursing home. Here she builds friendships with the cook and others around her. Quickly Ehrenreich receives a job at a maid service where she is left physically exhausted each day and notices that she is looked down upon as a maid. She concludes the chapter with remarks on the physical as well as social price that these maids must pay for their job.

After Maine, Ehrenreich moves to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she goes through drug tests at both Wal-Mart and Menards. She feels that this is degrading because both treat all applicants as possible drug addicts. She is eventually offered jobs at both and while the Menards job pays much higher, she chooses the Wal-Mart job because of the possibility for better treatment. This turns out to be false, as she feels that she is degraded and both she and her co-workers are taken advantage of. As she gets ready to leave she leaves her fellow Wal-Mart workers with the possibility of unionizing.

In the evaluation chapter Ehrenreich concludes that while wages stay low, the cost of living has increased, leaving the possibility of a balanced life behind. She reasons that if only she was paid more she could of stayed in one location and built a base and a new life for herself.

#15-Many of Ehrenreich’s colleagues relied heavily on the family-for housing and help with child-care, by sharing appliances and dividing up cooking, shopping and cleaning. Do you think that Americans make excessive demands on the family unit rather than calling for the government to help those in need?

No, workers should not call to the government whenever they need help. Instead we as a world have learned to rely on family, this allows for a more personal relationship with those who are helping the person in need rather than the ambiguous relationship if the government was to get involved. With this people have learned to be responsible when asking for family assistance and not taking more than is necessary.