Nickel and Dimed
A review of the book Nickel & Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich.
About the Author:
Barbara Alexander was born in Butte, Montana, in 1941. Her father, initially a copper miner pursued an education and escaped blue collar work to a successful private sector career. Barbara graduated at Rockefeller University in 1968 with a doctorate in cell biology.
Her foray into science ended with the Vietnam War. In New York she met her first husband, John Ehrenreich and became involved in anti-war protests. Barbara Ehrenreich discovered a passion for writing and editing with Health PAC, writing articles about health-care options for low-income earners.
In 1970 she gave birth to Rosa in a public facility where her labour was induced “because the doctor wanted to go home.” Her attention on medical care, as an instrument of social control, established her reputation as a feminist.
In the 1970’s, Ehrenreich joined the New American Movement. She engaged in strike support and union organizing, political strategizing and consciousness-raising.
In the early 1980’s following her divorce, Ehrenreich met second husband, Gary Stevenson. Money was a problem and in the 1990’s her acerbic commentary became directed at yuppie values and materialism.
Ehrenreich has been published in many reputable magazines including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Harper’s, The Nation, The New Republic and Social Policy.
She has also written numerous books and received grants, fellowships and awards including a Ford Foundation Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Locally, she is an honorary graduate of Latrobe University, Melbourne.
In 2000, she received the Sydney Hillman Award for Journalism following publication of Nickel & Dimed in Harper’s magazine.
About the Book:
In 1996 public welfare reforms in the U.S., “ended welfare as an automatic federal entitlement and required states to oblige able-bodied recipients to work.” In 1998 over lunch with Harper’s editor, Lewis Lapham, Ehrenreich angry at this government betrayal, wondered, “how the roughly four million women affected by welfare reform were going to make it on $6 or $7 an hour?” Her suggestion that “someone”should do a story about life on the minimum wage pointed the bone back at her as the best journalist for the job.
Lapham commissioned the piece. Ehrenreich would go undercover into low-wage U.S.A, get a job, rent a home and survive. She convinced herself it was an experiment and developed a set of controls to keep to this paradigm: She would not rely on skills or education, she would always take the highest paying job and the cheapest accommodation and she would not unionize. In addition her “get out clause” would assure her escape if things got tough: she would always have a car, never be homelessness and never go hungry.
Nickel and Dimed covers recurring themes: meagre wages, backbreaking jobs, nutrition, health and the simple maths of economic survival.
The book is divided into sections. Like a scientific report the “Introduction” provides an abstract or overview; “Getting ready” is the methodology and the three parts that follow, Florida, Maine and Minnesota are detailed observations of the experiment and cover Ehrenreich finding work, accommodation and managing survival. The final “Evaluation” reviews her effectiveness, the experience and insights overall.
Literary Journalism:
In crafting the expose, Ehrenreich follows the literary tradition established as early as Jack London’s (1903) The People of the Abyss.
With the British Empire at its most prosperous, London’s aim was to highlight the plight of the poor in the East End. London too, kept an “emergency sum … a gold sovereign in the armpit of his stokers singlet” and had a “port of refuge” to remind himself “good clothes and cleanliness still existed.“ In slipping into working class garb and then the masses, he marvelled how quickly “all servility vanished.”
Ehrenreich takes readers into a “parallel universe. “ She meets various characters: some male and many single working mothers, all of whom accept their fate and continue to “give and give.” There are facts and figures, analysis, quotes and emotion but the book’s main focus is Ehrenreich herself. Naturally, the voice is colored by her character as a ferocious feminist, irascible idealist and stubborn socialist.
The writing is clear, easy to read and precise. The research is timely, footnoted throughout and pre-empts reader questions. Occasional confrontations dwelling on topics like “cleaning shit” off toilet bowls often provide relief into humor.
Undercover Journalism:
Florida:
“Out of laziness” Ehrenreich starts work in Florida. Her story to potential employers is plausible: a divorced housewife returning to work. No one really cares about her background as long as she is obedient and tests negative for drugs. She learns quickly that job ads are not opportunities but rather employer insurance against turnover. Waitressing at the Hearth side family restaurant pays a meagre $2.43 per hour plus tips, meaning a second job is a necessity. Hardly lazy, Ehrenreich’s pace between 8am-2pm shifts at Jenny’s and 2.10pm -10pm shifts at Hearth side ends in “Ibuprofens” for back pain. Her accommodation search also ends a similar fate and “trailer trash” becomes a shocking demographic to aspire to.
Maine:
Portland, Maine is chosen for its “whiteness”, and she figures this means no questions asked. Ironically Ehrenreich asks the question, “so what am I doing here and in what order should I be doing it?” Again she finds needing an address to have a job and needing a job to afford an address a familiar and frustrating paradox!
Out of claustrophobia, and intoning George Orwell’s 1933 theory, that poverty creates boredom and idleness, Ehrenreich accepts two jobs. One as an aide in an aged care nursing home at $7 an hour is frenetic and exhausting. The other with “The Maids” at $6.65 per hour is an eye-opener for the emphasis on cosmetic touches and minimal water usage in cleaning homes of the rich. Lunch breaks, despite the 30 minutes allocated, are more like pit stops and worker nourishment ranges from the sublime salad sandwich to the ridiculous half bag of Doritos!
Her “Zen-like” non attachment to “dusting, bathrooms, kitchen and vacuuming”, is shattered when a colleague, Holly, “snaps” her leg. There is no sick leave or health care. The Team leader extols “working through it”. The whole experience leaves Ehrenreich angry and defeated.
Minnesota
Minnesota is appealing for “its deciduous trees, liberal stance and merciful attitude to the poor.” Ehrenreich house sits for a week pending secure accommodation and joins 875,000 “associates” selling for the largest retail chain in the world, Wal-Mart. In “Ladies” she masters of the constant race to “keep ladies wear shoppable.”
At $6 an hour renting at $250 a week is impossible. Motel living at the Clearview Inn gives readers a taste of “living in the worst motel in the country.” No window coverings, no door bolt, no screens and no air demand “keeping the senses alert,” allowing fear and sleep-deprivation to set in.
At Wal Mart, Ehrenreich to the reader’s relief, finally suggests, “We need a union”. Overwhelmed by staff complaints she only manages to scrape the surface. The tension of secure accommodation cuts the odyssey short.
Discoveries:
The scientific experiment over, the shock and shame delivered to Middle America is electric! Ehrenreich confirms that 30% of the American population earn less that the “living wage.”
- On average it took an hourly wage of $8.89 to afford a one bedroom apartment
- The odds of a welfare recipient being on this “living wage” level were shockingly 1%.
She had lived the “proof” that the working poor can’t make it.
For Ehrenreich personally, her discoveries confirm that life in the lower class is oppressive! “What you don’t necessarily realize when you start selling your time by the hour is that you actually start selling your life.”
Ehrenreich recognizes the shortcomings, the lack of kids in tow, and her “average” abilities. She is deserving of the “applause”. Her fitness to task despite age, her guts and determination in leaving a comfortable lifestyle and starting over three times are admirable.
Conclusion:
Nickel and Dime’s public shaming of the affluent middle class for their blindness to “a state of emergency” and their life line dependency on underpaid labour hit the mark at the time of publication. The book was a bestseller. Sales continue to rise and it has found a place on reading lists in schools and universities around the world.
Critics argue however, that the book is really a “self-portrait of Ehrenreich, a long-time rebel with an anti-authoritarian streak a mile wide, who can’t stomach the basic boundaries that most people easily accept in the workplace.”
Pointing to post-welfare reform reports, they lambast Ehrenreich’s expose as leftist propaganda, stating that, the “poverty rate among those households has continued to drop” and “poverty in single-mother households fell to its lowest point ever just three years after welfare reform became law.” The alternative view is recognized by Ehrenreich and for readers it opens the door to other questions.
Post the book, Ehrenreich describes, “My moment of maximum influence was in the summer of 2001 … at a lunch of Democratic senators and congress people … all listening to me, and nodding, “yes, yes, we must do something!” I said to myself, “Wow, I am so influential!” But then came 9/11 and they forgot all that.”
If things have regressed since, in terms of government action, reader interest has not waned and the topic is perennially newsworthy. It is certainly recommended. Readers are guaranteed to learn more about economic realities for minorities: single mothers, the unemployed, unskilled, uneducated, ethnic and colored. Living in a capitalist society and achieving the American dream is tough.
More satisfying now, is the knowledge that Ehrenreich is part of a class action by 1.6 million workers against Wal-Mart for systematic discrimination against women workers.
It leaves one to ponder that reform agendas can work in mysterious ways. Viva la revolution!
References:
- Ehrenreich, B. (2001) Nickel & Dimed, Grant Publications.
- London, J. (1903) The People of the Abyss Pluto Press.
- Orwell, G. (1933) “Down and Out In Paris and London” Victor Gollancz Ltd.
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