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

Trying to find the extra nickel or dime to tip the scales to beyond just survival

I am always one emergency, one car breakdown, one electric bill that went a little too high, or one mishap or another from financial disaster. When I have to work 3 hours to pay for a haircut that doesn't even include a blowdry, or 2 weeks to pay for the starter that died in my car, or a full day just to get an oil change...when the gas costs me slightly more than a 1/2 day's pay, but I can't get to work without a car, and I have both a bachelors and an associates degree, plus many years experience, often working more hours than I am paid, but can't get a job that I can support myself on my own.... I can most definitely relate to this....I grew up thinking just get a college education and things will get better, but I found out that's not always the case and sometimes college costs you so much that it leaves you with a new kind of debt. Credit cards maxed out, unexpected repairs,.... and not being paid to match the cost of living...being told to save when there's no $$ at the end of all the debt and you just keep sinking deeper no matter how many meals you cut out, or how many ways you cut corners and end up staying in a bad situation because it's the only way to survive. Although I have to say most people don't have a stash of thousand dollars somewhere so they can pay the first and last months rent to get started in the first place... Most can't afford to rent any kind of car even if it is a Rent-A-Wreck, when you buy an old car second hand or third hand,...or whatever.... It's usually because it's on it's last leg, like you.... And you end up sucking every bit of money just to keep it running because just when you think you have one thing fixed something else breaks down, but you can get to work without one.

The must-read book for anybody concerned, and ignorant, about poverty, job conditions, and the situation on the job market in the USA!!!

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.