Book Review:
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich, Metropolitan Books, $23.00
By Barb Kucera
editor, www.workdayminnesota.org
My friend Mary Rosenthal turned to me as we waited for a program featuring Barbara Ehrenreich to begin at the St. Paul Labor Centre.
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"This book made me so mad!" she said, gesturing toward the copy of Nickel and Dimed that sat in my lap. "I'm still mad!"
Indeed, if you want to get your blood boiling, read Ehrenreich's new book. A veteran writer on social and economic issues, she goes a step further by immersing herself in the world of low-wage work - literally. She writes of her experiences waiting tables in Florida, feeding Alzheimer's patients and scrubbing floors on her hands and knees in Maine and clerking at a Wal-Mart in Minnesota. By the time this compelling chronicle is finished, you will seethe with indignation over corporations that pay their workers barely more than the minimum wage - and demand they surrender their rights and even their dignity at the workplace door.
Despite the highly touted economic boom of the last decade, about 30 percent of American workers live on $8 an hour or less. Ehrenreich wanted to find out whether a single person working fulltime at that wage could survive at a fundamental level, that is, pay for housing, food and transportation. Her budget contained no frills, not even money for health insurance.
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She found that, while she came close in Maine by working all day, seven days a week, she could not live on that income. Many of her co-workers could not either. Some, like her fellow waitresses near Key West, Florida, lived in their cars. Others crammed together with family members or friends in cheap lodging.
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Minnesota turned out to be the hardest place of the three states to find affordable housing. In fact, Ehrenreich never found it, she relates. When she went to a local charity for help in finding a place to rent, the staffperson recommended she go to a homeless shelter!
The financial realities are sickening, but the hurdles that Ehrenreich and other workers must jump to get these low-wage jobs are even more so. Companies like Wal-Mart subject employees to pre-employment drug testing and personality tests peppered with absurd inquiries like "Some people work better when they are a little bit high" (do you agree or disagree?) or "Rules must be followed to the letter" (Ehrenreich said she was questioned when she responded "strongly agree" and stopped short of "totally agree.")
She finds her co-workers often generous to others despite their own poverty, but also often unable to conceive of ways they might act together to improve their lot. Ehrenreich chalks this up in part to the system of low-wage employment itself. Even naturally outspoken individuals find themselves beaten down by the sheer drudgery of the work, both physically and mentally, and the tactics of management.
"My guess is that the indignities imposed on so many low-wage workers - the drug tests, the constant surveillance, being 'reamed out' by managers - are part of what keeps wages low," she writes. "If you're made to feel unworthy enough, you may come to think that what you're paid is what you are actually worth."
In Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich makes a strong case for the need for American society to declare "a state of emergency" about poverty, low-wage employment, the lack of affordable housing, the millions without health care and corporate intimidation in general. If it makes enough of us mad, maybe, just maybe, we'll try to do something about it.
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Book Review:
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich, Metropolitan Books, $23.00
By Barb Kucera
editor, www.workdayminnesota.org
My friend Mary Rosenthal turned to me as we waited for a program featuring Barbara Ehrenreich to begin at the St. Paul Labor Centre.
buy cialis-soft online cialis-soft online generic
“This book made me so mad!” she said, gesturing toward the copy of Nickel and Dimed that sat in my lap. “I’m still mad!”
Indeed, if you want to get your blood boiling, read Ehrenreich’s new book. A veteran writer on social and economic issues, she goes a step further by immersing herself in the world of low-wage work – literally. She writes of her experiences waiting tables in Florida, feeding Alzheimer’s patients and scrubbing floors on her hands and knees in Maine and clerking at a Wal-Mart in Minnesota. By the time this compelling chronicle is finished, you will seethe with indignation over corporations that pay their workers barely more than the minimum wage – and demand they surrender their rights and even their dignity at the workplace door.
Despite the highly touted economic boom of the last decade, about 30 percent of American workers live on $8 an hour or less. Ehrenreich wanted to find out whether a single person working fulltime at that wage could survive at a fundamental level, that is, pay for housing, food and transportation. Her budget contained no frills, not even money for health insurance.
online pharmacy premarin for sale no prescription pharmacy
She found that, while she came close in Maine by working all day, seven days a week, she could not live on that income. Many of her co-workers could not either. Some, like her fellow waitresses near Key West, Florida, lived in their cars. Others crammed together with family members or friends in cheap lodging.
buy lariam online https://www.caseymedical.com.au/wp-content/uploads/backup/2022/12/lariam.html no prescription pharmacy
Minnesota turned out to be the hardest place of the three states to find affordable housing. In fact, Ehrenreich never found it, she relates. When she went to a local charity for help in finding a place to rent, the staffperson recommended she go to a homeless shelter!
The financial realities are sickening, but the hurdles that Ehrenreich and other workers must jump to get these low-wage jobs are even more so. Companies like Wal-Mart subject employees to pre-employment drug testing and personality tests peppered with absurd inquiries like “Some people work better when they are a little bit high” (do you agree or disagree?) or “Rules must be followed to the letter” (Ehrenreich said she was questioned when she responded “strongly agree” and stopped short of “totally agree.”)
She finds her co-workers often generous to others despite their own poverty, but also often unable to conceive of ways they might act together to improve their lot. Ehrenreich chalks this up in part to the system of low-wage employment itself. Even naturally outspoken individuals find themselves beaten down by the sheer drudgery of the work, both physically and mentally, and the tactics of management.
“My guess is that the indignities imposed on so many low-wage workers – the drug tests, the constant surveillance, being ‘reamed out’ by managers – are part of what keeps wages low,” she writes. “If you’re made to feel unworthy enough, you may come to think that what you’re paid is what you are actually worth.”
In Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich makes a strong case for the need for American society to declare “a state of emergency” about poverty, low-wage employment, the lack of affordable housing, the millions without health care and corporate intimidation in general. If it makes enough of us mad, maybe, just maybe, we’ll try to do something about it.