Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

My family was by no means rich, but growing up middle-class I was privileged enough not to learn that poverty is one of the most expensive lifestyles one can have. For most people, poverty is less an uphill battle than it is a never-ending labyrinth, as the Barbara Ehrenreich experiences first-hand, over and over again. Very grateful to this author for opening a door I never saw with a voice I'd never heard.

This excellent example of undercover reporting reveals the truth behind the working poor. Researched and written in the late '90s, it is even more relevant today. The author, a journalist, chooses three cities in which to try out the life of someone working at minimum wage. The book chronicles her struggles to find employment, housing and food and maintain the energy to keep going every day. She comments on the function of pre-employment personality tests "...is to convey information not to the employer but to the potential employee...You will have no secrets from us...we want your innermost self." (p. 59). Her commentary on maid's uniforms - which seem to make her completely invisible to everyone else. She finds it difficult, even impossible to find safe housing and make ends meet, but most telling is the complete and utter physical and mental fatigue that comes as part of the territory, fraying her nerves and making her feel paranoid. "Slights loom large, and a reprimand can reverberate into the night."

It's hard to realize that such lives are so precarious and depressing when you are not faced with that kind of pressure every day. Her closing comments suggest that much of society in America is based on the work of these working poor. In fact, Ehrenreich suggests "The working poor...are in fact the major philanthropists of our society. They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be scared 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." (p. 221)

The thing that drove me crazy about this book is that she got mouthy with her employers and lazy at work. She's hardly the best representative of the poorest people.