31 - Nickel and Dimed

Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich

Owl Books, 2001

230 pages

Date completed: May 11, 2010

I have mixed feelings about this book. Ehrenreich, who leaves her comfortable life as a writer in order to go undercover as a minimum-wage earner in three different states, sets out to attempt to discover whether it is truly possible to survive on minimum wage.

While this is certainly an interesting premise, I never really felt like it was valid. If she runs into trouble, Ehrenreich can always fall back on her old life: a high-paying job, full bank account, home, car, etc. I know that this wasn't necessarily meant to be seen as completely without fault, so I won't complain about it too much about it.

Ehrenreich spends time as a waitress in Key West, FL; a maid and nursing home food aide in Portland, Maine; and a Wal-Mart employee in Minneapolis, MN. In each scenario, she tries to make ends meet in the most frugal ways possible: she lives in the cheapest housing she can find that is also safe, takes as many jobs as she can, buys the cheapest food she can find, and does not splurge on anything.

The result is that eventually, everything in Ehrenreich's world becomes a question of worth. Her time, her energy, and even other people are mentally weighed by Ehrenreich on a balance scale as she ultimately attempts to judge whether these minimum-wage earners are completely wasting their lives.

Overall, the book was easy to get through and interesting to read. I won't profess to be well-versed in economics (though I did scrape by and pass my micro/macro AP tests years ago!), so I apologize if my reactions seem shallow because of this. It wasn't my favorite read, but it was nevertheless refreshing to read about a journalist placing herself directly into the field. Despite any fallacies in Ehrenreich's plans, the premise was commendable, and I think she succeeded in proving her point: that it is impossible for some people to survive making only minimum wage.