Nickel and dimed : on (not) getting by in America

From the inside front book cover: "Barbara Ehrenreich is the Thorstein Veblen of the twenty-first century. And this book is one of her very best--breathtaking in its scope, insight, humor, and passion." --Arlie Russell Hochschild Millions of Americans work full-time, year-round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job--any job--could be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper, on six to seven dollars an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered as a woefully inexperienced homemaker returning to the workforce. So began a grueling, hair-raising, and darkly funny odyssey through the underside of working America. Moving from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, Ehrenreich worked as a waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing home aide, and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. Very quickly, she discovered that no job is truly "unskilled," that even the lowliest occupations require exhausting mental and muscular effort. She also learned that one job is not enough; you need at least two if you intend to live indoors. Nickel and Dimed reveals how-wage America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity--a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate stratagems for survival. Read it for the smoldering clarity of Ehrenreich's perspective and for a rare view of how "prosperity" looks from the bottom. You will never see anything--from a motel bathroom to a restaurant meal--quite the same way again. From the inside back book cover: "Millions of Americans suffer daily trying to make ends meet. Barbara Ehrenreich's book forces people to acknowledge the average worker's struggle, and promises to be extremely influential" --LYNN WOOLSEY, MEMBER OF CONGRESS "One of the great American social critics has written an unforgettable memoir of what it was like to work in some of America's least attractive jobs. No one who reads this book will be able to resist its power to make them see the world in a new way." --MITCHELL DUNEIER From the back cover: "I was absolutely knocked out by Barbara Ehrenreich's remarkable odyssey. She has accomplished what no contemporary write has even attempted--to be that 'nobody' who barely subsists on her essential labors. Nickel and Dimed is a stiff punch in the nose to those righteous apostles of ‘welfare reform.' Not only is it must reading but it's mesmeric. You can't put the damn thing down. Bravo!" --STUDS TERKEL "Entering the world of service work, Barbara Ehrenreich folded clothes at Wal-Mart, waitressed, washed dishes in a nursing home, and scrubbed floors on her hands and knees. Her account of those experiences is unforgettable--heart-wrenching, infuriating, funny, smart, and empowering. Few readers will be untouched by the shameful realities that underlie America's economy. Vintage Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed will surely take its place among the classics of underground reportage." --JULIET SCHOR "With this book Barbara Ehrenreich takes her place among such giants of investigative journalism as George Orwell and Jack London. Ehrenreich's courage and empathy bring us face-to-face with the fate of millions of American workers today." --FRANCES FOX PIVEN "Drunk on dot-coms and day trading, America has gone blind to the downside of its great prosperity. In Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich expertly peels away the layers of self-denial, self-interest, and self-protection that separate the rich from the poor, the served from the servers, the housed from the homeless. This brave and frank book is ultimately a challenge to create a less divided society." --NAOMI KLEIN "A brilliant on-the-job report from the dark side of the boom. No one since H. L. Mencken has assailed the smug rhetoric of prosperity with such scalpel-like precision and ferocious wit." --MIKE DAVIS

Introduction: Getting Ready......1

one
Serving in Florida......11

two
Scrubbing in Maine......51

three
Selling in Minnesota......121

Evaluation......193