Book Review - Ehrenreich, Barbara: Nickle and Dimed: On Not Getting By in America [ New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2001.]
By Marlene Quinn
I would like to recommend a book for your summer reading. It's a small book that has a lot to say. The title is Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich. How many times have you heard it said -- why don't "they" just get a job. This book was written by a woman who decided to try to survive on minimum wage.

Ehrenreich admits she cheats at the experiment as she allows herself two luxuries, owning a car and a $1,000 cushion for emergencies. And, of course, she also knows she can walk away from the whole thing if living gets too impossible. Ehrenreich takes us through the whole process from searching for a safe place to live, interviews, testing, and the jobs themselves. She works in different geographic areas such as Florida, Minnesota, and Maine. She tries various types of jobs from waitressing and nursing home aide to WalMart and Merry Maids. Each is accompanied by its own set of challenges.

In each locale Ehrenreich struggles to find a place to live in which she feels safe, but is also cheap enough that she will still have money left for food and transportation. She faces the difficulty of becoming ill and needing medical care. She struggles to cover the expenses for just herself and learns through co-workers what can happen if one also has dependents. Ehrenreich battles the tiredness she is left with at the end of the day. While in college I worked in a coffee shop. Luckily, I wasn't dependent on those wages. I remember well it was hard work and I was always eager for my shift to end.

Ms. Ehrenreich has statistics to share but for me the important lesson wasn't in the numbers. She writes about what happened to her spirit, her feeling of self-worth. In the jobs she discovers the reality of becoming a non-person. It is in her descriptions of not being seen as who she is, not being valued, that really makes this book come alive.
In the years I have been connected to Meeting Ground in one capacity or another, I have learned much from the residents and community. This book reminded me again of the importance of every individual. No one should be made to feel like a non-person. We all have a story to share and none is more valuable than another. Nickle and Dimed puts a face on the statistical data we often hear. I will try to remember Ms. Ehrenreich's words the next time I enter a WalMart.

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From Nickel and Dimed
by Barbara Ehrenreich

When poor single mothers had the option of remaining out of the labor force on welfare, the middle and upper class tended to view them with a certain impatience, if not disgust. The welfare poor were excoriated for their laziness, their persistence in reproducing in unfavorable circumstances, their presumed addictions, and above all for their "dependency." Here they were, content to live off "government handouts" instead of seeking "self-sufficiency," like everyone else, through a job. They needed to get their act together, learn how to wind an alarm clock, get out there and get to work. But now that government has largely withdrawn its "handouts," now that the overwhelming majority of the poor are out there toiling in Wal-Mart or Wendy's - well, what are we to think of them? Disapproval and condescension no longer apply, so what outlook makes sense?

Guilt, you may be thinking warily. Isn't that what we're supposed to feel? But guilt doesn't go anywhere near far enough; the appropriate emotion is shame - shame at our own dependency, in this case, on the underpaid labor of others. When someone works for less than she can live on - when, for example, she goes hungry so that you can eat more cheaply and conveniently - then she has made a great sacrifice for you, she has made you a gift of some part of her abilities, her health, and her life. The "working poor," as they are approvingly termed, 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. As Gail, one of my restaurant coworkers put it, "you give and you give."