This book was vastly disappointing. I thought that it was going to be a big expose of how the lower classes are being kept down or something. But really it's just Ehrenreich working at a copule of crappy jobs and whining about them. She never digs into the history of any of these companies, she never delves very deeply into the backstories of her co-workers to find out why they are where they are. She doesn't care. She's very much a snob, she firmly believes that she's too good for any of these jobs, and doesn't think that her co-workers could ever do anything else. It was depressing in so many ways. . . .

My biggest question picking this book up, at least 15 years since it was a nonfiction phenomenon, is would it still be relevant in 2017? Would her data be relevant, especially after a recession, an economic boom, and a disgruntled white working class swinging further and further to the right?

As I finished this in literally the last hours of 2017, I found that the book was not entirely what I expected. It is not facts, figures, charts, or the typical research that I find in my social science texts. It's stories. It is one woman's attempt to take on an identity she never had; single, working class woman without the education or connections to get her anything other than a minimum wage job. The stories were by no means obsolete. They are maybe better-told these days, in part because of Ehrenreich's book, but we have heard them and I think there's more of a general awareness that no one, literally no one, can scrape themselves out of poverty and live the American dream with the labor system we have set up in this country.

Having been in a non-research role similar to Ehrenreich's, I cleaned houses and worked retail after obtaining my master's degree. Before grad school, I had days where I literally taught French at a college in the morning and scraped dog poo out of cages at a shelter in the evening. She and I both had an important distinction from the majority of Americans: if things got really bad, we could call family to feed us or pay medical bills, and we knew this life was temporary. I do not think the importance of that frame of mind, or the knowledge of a wealthy family as safety net, can be underestimated.

This book made me think of an interesting moment from those days. I was cleaning a man's house in Richmond, Virginia, when he came home early and had a brief conversation with me. The look I remember on his face upon meeting me was utter confusion. What was it, I wondered? Was I older or younger than he expected? Whiter? Better spoken? More or less attractive? Dirtier? What was it that made him walk away frowning and chewing his lip in concentration? Assumptions are made about maids, and most of them are wrong. No one I worked with ever even thought of stealing. All of us were white. Most of my co-workers were well under 30. Ehrenreich does an excellent job sprinkling research and observations from other books about the kind of demographics that we expect to see in certain roles, and how those change with culture. One of the things I appreciate about her book is her awareness of race and the fact that her own gets her into a better position (especially in the South) than she would have as a non-white.

The weaknesses of this book is that Ehrenreich is a little too preoccupied with her own "status" and likes to remind the reader repeatedly that she has a PhD and doesn't have to do this. I try to understand why she would share this, but it becomes tedious and reads as pretentious. It is almost as though she is subconsciously trying to insert the differentiation between herself and the people that she is supposedly an advocate for. It reeks of white savior.

I do think she shows incredible sympathy toward one of the less-understood aspects of poverty and that is the emotional and psychological toll of working constantly without adequate respect or compensation. She details her own anger, depression, anxiety, lost sleep, commitment to the approval of abusive supervisors...even though none of this is her reality. And she nails this part.

The only other true criticism I have of the way this book is set up is that she went in with an objective. She knew what she would find, and this is more or less her documentation of finding the thing she knew was there. I would love to see this journalistic experiment repeated and written about by someone who believes welfare-users are moochers, the poor are lazy, and there are millions of opportunities to make it in America without race privilege, an inherited access to education and/or wealth, and perfect health. Let's add children to that mix, as well, since most people that live in poverty are women with children. I would love to see what comes out of that experiment, and how they justify the fact that they are unable to demand anyhing other than the lot they are given.

In short, this oral history of the working class still carries a lot of weight. It is by no means obsolete. However most of these stories are well-known at this point, and I ask myself...what difference did it make REALLY?

Very quick explanation of the premise of this one: a woman, who is a writer/journalist, is talking to her publisher about what she wants to write about next and says, “someone ought to write a book about how hard it is to get by on the minimum wage in America.” The publisher says, “Okey-dokey (the book is set in the US so I’m trying to give you a feeling of verisimilitude) you’ve hired.” (High fives all around)

Before I started this book I really worried. I mean, I’m a bit of a worrier anyway – but mostly I worried that this would be the sort of book that my mother would hate. The sort of book my mother hates is the sort of book that is written by someone she calls ‘middle class’ (actually, she would probably call them middle-class twits) and these people would then presume to be able to write about what my mum would call ‘the working class’.

These people, these ‘middle-class book writing types’ basically give my mother the shits. It is nothing personal, you understand – it is much more intense than the merely personal. So, it was with gritted teeth that I started this one.

I’m glad to report that not only did I really love this book, I even think my mum would enjoy it.

First of all, Barbara recognises that she is basically an impostor. She recognises that her ‘experiment’ is really only going to be just that – I mean, she is not going to literally endanger her life, health or wellbeing just to make a point. All the same – this is the sort of reality TV program that would never make it to television. Particularly not in the USA.

That fact is something that really struck me while reading this book – I mean, even before she mentioned it herself. Early in the book she compares herself to Upstairs Downstairs – that is, a British television show about class distinctions. I thought it was very interesting that she had to rely on a British show for a cultural reference to the ‘working class’. Later she points out that working class people may well exist in America – but they definitely don’t exist on American television. I couldn’t help reflect that films like Dockers, Billy Elliot (particularly the themes around the strike – but also the themes of homosexuality), Brassed Off, or Kes simply could never be made in America. Isn’t that incredibly sad?

Now, my dear friend Wendy told me once that in some states the minimum wage can be ‘discounted’ if people earn ‘tips’. It took me a while to believe I had understood what she was saying, but if I’d read this book when I’d first intended to read it – when it first came out – I’d have known this already. Tipping is something I find quite repulsive. I hate everything about it – but then, I don’t like watching dogs beg for food, so I guess getting people to beg in much the same way is only going to make matters worse.

What do you think it is about America – I mean, the land that is supposed to believe in equality of opportunity and democracy – that somehow encourages so many people to get off on making people beg and demean themselves? The discussion in this book about the Maids (house cleaners) is illustrative of this. Companies even advertise that they force their workers to clean floors on their hands and knees. I remember my mother talking about a great-auntie of mine who worked for some rich bastard in Belfast. He would expect her to scrub the street in front of his house on her hands and knees. I believe she ended up not being able to walk. Like I said, hard to see how anyone could get off on this sort of humiliation.

I believe in the value of labour – that people are better off if they can work and if their work can be valued. I believe we are social creatures and that we only feel true self-worth if we believe we are making a real contribution to the society we live in. So, when we create an underclass of untouchables, a caste that must work themselves into ill-health and who never have any hope of being able to make ends meet or of getting out of poverty – then that is a choice that we make and one that says as much about us as people as it says about us as a society.

This book doesn’t offer simple solutions – in fact, besides her suggesting that people join together in Trade Unions and find ways to improve their pay and conditions, she makes virtually no suggestions at all. Even this is not presented as a panacea. If anything she worries that anger and resentment will build to the point where it will become unstoppable.

The pre-employment tests given to people applying for jobs are particularly evil and in Australia would probably be illegal. Now, this is really saying something. We have just had the most reprehensible and obnoxiously rightwing government imaginable but even they would have found reason to pause over the explicit anti-trade union discrimination that seems a common place in these employment tests.

It is hard to imagine the dice being more brutally loaded against these people.

The most memorable line in this book for me was the little girl who pointed to a black or Latino child (I can’t remember which now) and said, “Look mommy, a baby maid”. Aren’t societies with caste systems so terribly interesting?

This book constantly reminded me of Margaret Atwood – there was something about the voice, something about the themes, something about the tone. In fact, think of a non-fiction book written by Atwood and this might well be the book you would end up with.

This book isn’t nearly as bitter and twisted as this review might make it sound – I’m happy to admit that this is a subject which makes me quite bitter and twisted. Parts of the book were very moving and other bits very funny. She has a lovely way about her – I’m particularly fond of self-deprecation, I find it an incredibly attractive feature. I also find intelligent women nearly completely irresistible. That she is both of these had me falling helplessly (and perhaps even a little pathetically) in love.

Barbara produces a list of reasons why the US character would allow this mistreatment of such a large section of its citizenry to exist. All the usual suspects end up on the list – you know, US obsession with ‘success’ and the tendency to blame ‘failure’ on the individual and so on. But one of the things I kept thinking was the way American humour so often seems to come down to a degrading string of insults. Humiliation and insults do seem to play an interesting role in the American psyche and this had me wondering if this is part of the reason why tipping is so embraced there while here in Australia we have no idea what to do in ‘tipping situations’.

Before I get flamed – Australia is just as bad, one would only need to go to Bali for proof of that, and we also treat single mothers, Aboriginals, selected migrants and an endless string of others with utter contempt and loathing. I’m more interested in why – in a country that believes it is self-evident that all people are born equal – that such self-evident inequality of treatment could be so seemingly blindly tolerated.

But then, as Barbara points out – the fundamentalist Christians she has contact with also seem to exhibit the exact opposite of what one would take their core beliefs to be. What would Jesus do? From the behaviour of his followers one can only suspect he would do the complete opposite of the stuff he said in his Sermon on the Mount.

This is a wonderfully thought-provoking book and one that I enjoyed very much.

I would really like to see this redone now. Same problems, but much bigger wage to expense gap.

A friend recommended this book because it was so profound for her. I could see why, but I had a hard time getting past the author’s sarcasm. There was too much of it, and I was assuming Ehrenreich was being sarcastic, because otherwise, some of the things she said were actually quite awful - racist, fatphobic, classist, etc. I realized it was probably because that’s her storytelling style and because it was written over twenty years ago when no one noticed offensive language (ever watch Friends? It’s full of casual homophobia, and Seinfeld was too funny to be considered racist, and yet…).

Also, I didn’t really learn anything new. All she wrote confirmed what I already knew - that it’s impossible to subsist on minimum wage. It felt like when I watched Morgan Spurlock develop liver disease by only eating McDonald’s for a month - it’s not like anyone expected he would finish his Supersize Me experiment in perfect health (that was a pretty good documentary if you haven’t seen it).

Well, I take it back a little. I did learn one thing. I had no idea about these personality tests, which were about as effective as when my boss had to fill out US paperwork when he was being asked to move to the US from Tokyo - all the questions were some variation of, “Are you a terrorist or do you know one?,” (this was after 9/11).

I think Ehrenreich's conclusions are obvious, and I am guilty of benefiting from cheap labor, be it from here in the US or in the manufacturing plants overseas. I worked a number of the same jobs she did in high school. The only reason I was able to get by was because I lived with my parents. I’d like to say I couldn’t imagine people making ends meet as an adult, but I also remember the menial jobs that were the only options my parents had when we immigrated to the US. Maybe they/we made it because we had each other and we had a fairly sizable Korean community for support. I have trouble imagining myself do it as an educated white collar professional. Even today, with all the inflation, every time I go grocery shopping, I wonder how people who make less than I do manage it when I’m basically scraping by and living check to check. So I guess I hate to take back what I just said too in that I really don’t understand how people living on minimum wage are able to live in the US on their own or as parents.

I suppose the book is useful in this sense - making me reflect on my life and views, even though the language is still problematic for me. I would be interested to know if she wrote the book today, and whether today's higher minimum wage rate would make a difference.

Me llama la atención que haya tantas reseñas de personas profundamente indignadas y enfadadas con Barbara Ehrenreich: ¿como se atreve una escritora con un doctorado y de clase media alta a pasar unos meses intentando vivir de trabajos mal pagados? No solo tengo una opinión bastante diferente sobre ese «experimento» en sí, es que me parece haber estado leyendo un libro completamente distinto del que han leído esas personas. No soy capaz, por ejemplo, de ver a Ehrenreich como alguien inconsciente de sus privilegios, porque precisamente su posición privilegiada es algo que va recalcando a lo largo de todo el libro. Tampoco se me antoja pomposa ni arrogante su actitud. Al contrario, me parece una persona empática y compasiva, que si inicialmente se pregunta si la van a desenmascarar ya de entrada, no es, creo, porque piense que una persona de su clase social y educación ha de ser detectada de inmediato, sino por la extrañeza que cualquiera sentiríamos en una situación en la que estuviésemos de tapadillo. Está también el desclasamiento, supongo, el volver al trato con una clase social que desde hace tiempo no es en la que te mueves habitualmente. Hay que decir que Barbara Ehrenreich provenía de una familia de clase trabajadora, con un padre minero y una madre ama de casa, que solo durante su adolescencia pudo llegar a considerarse clase media debido a que su padre logró un trabajo mejor pagado. Sea como sea, supongo que lo hecho por Ehrenreich con este libro es algo que no podía sino despertar reacciones muy viscerales, que son tan interesantes, si nos pusiéramos a analizarlas, como el propio Nickel and Dimed.

Pero, en fin, yo lo que venía a decir es que Nickel and Dimed me ha gustado, así, de forma igualmente visceral. Creo que si alguien tenía que tener esa experiencia y escribir un libro sobre ella, Barbara Ehrenreich era una de las personas más adecuadas. (Por cierto, a una de esas reseñas furibundas, alguien respondía algo así como «¿Por qué los pobres no escribís vuestro propio libro sobre el tema si tanto os disgusta este?». Ya sabemos lo que pasa cuando alguien pobre se queja, ¿verdad? De hecho creo que eso es parte del intríngulis de este libro, que está escrito por alguien de la misma clase social de aquellas personas que serían sus principales lectores.) Podría parecer que debido al contexto en que fue publicado (los EE. UU. de Bill Clinton) y la época (de 1998 al 2000) Nickel and Dimed habrá perdido algo de su vigencia, pero desafortunadamente es difícil que envejezca. Por ejemplo, buena parte del libro trata sobre lo difícil que es encontrar alojamiento con un sueldo mínimo (e incluso no tan mínimo). Vaya, ¿de qué me suena esto?

DISCLAIMER: This is my rant on the “classic Marxist rant” by Barbara Ehrenreich in the form of Nickel and Dimed. REALLY. I am not saying that we should not help poor people. I am mostly just annoyed by the author. If my political ranting will bother you, please don't read this. AND if you do, you are not allowed to think less of me. You may disagree, but know that I actually am a nice, caring, empathetic person. :)

Unfortunately, Ehrenreich did not present much shocking or new information in her book. Even if she had, her Marxist cynicism and naive hypocrisy overshadowed her message. Of course, if anyone had been placed in such a situation, she would have been appalled by the tremendous difficulty of the way the poor are forced to live. But Ehrenreich’s obnoxious inclination to think anyone in a managerial position is malicious and purposefully cruel was overbearing. The managers were not in a much better position than those under them, and they have to do a “meaningless” job as well. She even began realizing that she was becoming uncontrollably irate at any moment’s notice. How can she criticize others for acting the exact way she felt because of the degrading circumstances they share? Not to mention, she pretty much had been acting this prejudiced way before this epiphany, but earlier she directed it at those in higher positions instead of her equals.

Also, let’s go into her Communist ideals (even though she sort of denied being a Marxist, she quoted him a few times and paraphrased Mao’s words). She is advocating (by implication) a system way worse than the Goliath that is Wal-Mart. She finds it utterly appalling that people have some of their basic rights taken away by agreeing to work for certain companies. (By the way, have you ever worked for a corporation? That's what they do.) However, you have absolutely no rights in a Communist society. Remember Animal Farm? After a while, the pigs look exactly like the human men they had replaced in their rebellion. Plus, she’s complaining about the rich 20% at the top and wanting to help the poor 20% on the bottom, completely ignoring the 60% in between. She just wants to replace the top with the bottom, and then where would we be? Bingo! The same place. Ehrenreich means basically an “inherited kingdom.” Ironic that she feels that the poor should just naturally inherit the country. She wants her kingdom to be like the socialist/communist world because she feels that the United States will not take care of the proletariat. But I don’t know if 80% should give up their rights so that the 20% can rule (oh, and kill everyone else in the process--that's what Communists do).

As far as her complaints about “rights” are concerned, let’s look at her previous life. She is UPPER middle class, which is not nearly the same as the average American. Her job is as a journalist, free-lance, I believe. So, she does not have the average structured job, and her job is to speak her mind and say whatever she wants however she wants. Of course she’s going to be upset that she can’t curse in front of customers. Some customers may be offended by such language, but she can’t see that; she only knows that she wants to say the f-word on the job and she can’t. Heaven forbid.

She seemed to be shocked by the fact that her employers didn’t want her standing around talking on the job either. I understand that we should allow people to be human and enjoy working with each other. I like to see employees joke with each other and get along, but I don’t like to need help and can’t get any because some “associates” are standing around talking and ignoring their customers. I don't agree with the Wal-Mart "time theft" idea, but she does need to realize she's at work.

I feel that the story would have been much more compelling and upsetting if she had just followed a few of the women with whom she worked. Her story just wasn’t interesting. I certainly don’t mean to make light of or ignore such a serious subject, but it could have been done so much better.(Have you seen Morgan Spurlock's 30 Days where he and his girlfriend REALLY live below the poverty line? Now, that's worth seeing.)

Also, I would have been interested (and I think it would really have been fair) to give statistics on those living below the poverty line who are on welfare, are illegal immigrants (if they were included), have mental illnesses, etc. Or, I would like to know if that 20% of working poor is all exactly similar to the people has associated with. I just want a complete and honest picture either way so that I’m not wondering what it is. We need to take care of all the people, but we need to know the circumstances. Also, I know that most of the working poor are good, honest, hard-working people, but we know that there are still many who abuse the system, and the way Ehrenreich talks, you’d think that the only ones abusing the system were the managers (“classic Marxist” attitude). Instead of reading her book, maybe some of the people (managers) should read The Female Advantage and learn some managing skills. :)

I also would like to know how raising the minimum wage affects the economy. If it helps fix this problem, great. But it would seem that if we raise the minimum wage, then prices will start going up. I’m no economist, so I wouldn’t know, but I would have liked more information about how to help the problem instead of her ideas about getting thrown in prison for protesting.

I will admit that I probably have some prejudice attitudes that she addresses in her book, but I don’t feel that she really proved her point. Eating in a healthier manner and not smoking or drinking are not going to solve the poor’s problems, but when people are counting pennies, every one counts. Ehrenreich said that she never got to the point of eating lentil soup, but if she had, she would have saved money (and it would have been healthier). It seems that, just like everyone else, convenience takes precedence over everything else.

In the end, the condition of the working poor is an important issue that we all need to work on and try to find more solutions for. I just don’t agree with the way she thinks and her attitudes about some of the things that she found. This book does have some redeeming qualities, but as I said, she got in the way.

This book is about America's working poor and though I found it interesting it is only a very small window into the lives of these people. The author has many advantages over her co-workers and this shows through loud and clear during her experiment. She also has a somewhat elitist attitude towards those she works with and constantly reminds us of her education and how "over-qualified" she is for many of these jobs.

No doubt, it will surely be an eye opening book for those who have never had the experience of growing up in this sort of situation. For me it was an all too painful reminder of my early years and the horrible job at a fast-food joint where I worked double shifts, was often called a peon by management and went home smelling and feeling like I'd been dipped in the fry-o-later all for a measly pittance. Finishing school and taking a few college courses changed the course of my life but many don't have this option or realize it too late when they're already saddled with children and debt. It's difficult to advance past an entry level job when one needs such luxuries as food and shelter and then if you throw children into the mix things are pretty glum. This author hasn't a clue about the true working poor, she has a stash of cash and car available at all times. This book mainly made me sad, frustrated and aggravated but there were a few moments of light and genuine human kindness that did keep me reading.

In the end this book turns out to be all about one woman's very limited experience as "the working poor" who rushed back to her "upper middle class" lifestyle to make some bucks off of this book. Blech.

I grew up in poverty and worked minimum-wage jobs for years while paying my way through school. I found this book insulting and privileged at times. It was as if she was on safari observing poor people in their natural habitats. I know Ehrenreich has dedicated a lot of money and time to helping disadvantaged people since she wrote this book, and I know the book raised awareness of the plight of the working poor. Her tone was a little smug for my taste.

This book had actually been on my TBR for ages, but it wasn't until the NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st Century list came out that I actually decided to download it from the library for my #walkntalkwednesdays.

If you are like me and prefer your sociological studies books to be heaped in immersion techniques rather than a bunch of statistics and mumbo jumbo, I wouldn’t hesitate to add Nickel and Dimed to your TBR. While there are certainly gripes to gripe about (mainly in the form of the author conducting an experiment that she can easily remove herself from (and does) when the going gets rough), it is astounding that over 20 years after its original publication date how little salaries have changed while the cost of EVERYTHING has increased so dramatically.

I listened to this one and was fully invested throughout the duration of my daily walks. Highly recommend both Evicted as well as Nomadland if this topic interests you, as well as the film Motel Kids of Orange County for a heartbreaking look at families just trying to get by with little to no chance of ever really getting ahead.

After seeing Maid all over social media and noticing there was a screen adaptation on Netflix, I kept wondering if I'd read it.

I haven't, but it reminds me of this book I had forgotten about. I read it in undergrad for a sociology class and I remember it made quite the impression on me.

I'm grateful my teacher assigned this book as it is very eye opening although of course, rather staged/sensationalized.

*Edited to Add* This book would be excellent reading for Republicans or those who are against government aid for those in need. The hypocrisy of the religious right knows no bounds, especially when it comes to helping people or having any compassion.

Welfare reform in the mid-1990s was meant to get people off the welfare rolls and into the workforce. As the U.S. had a strong economy at the time, and jobs were plentiful, this was supposed to work out pretty well all around. The problem was that most 'unskilled jobs' paid minimum wage (which was six to seven dollars/hour at the time) and this just wasn't enough to support a parent and child - much less a larger family.



In 1998 Barbara Ehrenreich - a political activist and writer - decided to try to live like the 'working poor.' She planned to obtain low paying jobs and see if she could live on the resulting wages. Ehrenreich then wrote a book about her experiences - this one.


Barbara Ehrenreich

As Ehrenreich points out in the book, she didn't really start on a level playing field with the economically deprived. She was well-educated, in good health, and had no small children. Nevertheless her experiences provided a peek at what it was like to be a member of the working poor.

Over the span of a couple of months Ehrenreich lived in Florida, Maine, and Minnesota. In each location, she rented (or tried to rent) an apartment, took one or two low-paying jobs, and attempted to live on the wages she earned. The first problem Ehrenreich encountered was finding a place to live. Without funds to pay a security deposit and first month's rent, it was very difficult to rent an apartment - even a cheap crappy one. Thus, some minimum wage earners (including Ehrenreich at times) had to live in shabby motels, which actually cost more than an apartment.



One of Ehrenreich's co-workers lived in a van. Ehrenreich describes the various places she lived, most of which were ratty, uncomfortable, minimalist, and sometimes dangerous. On occasion she had no refrigerator or cooking facilities.

Ehrenreich's next order of business was obtaining a job or two in each state. This often required submitting applications, going to interviews, passing personality exams (would you steal; would you report a co-worker for theft; do you follow rules; and so on), and getting drug-tested.



Upon obtaining a job, Ehrenrich had to buy appropriate clothing (generally slacks and polo shirts) and travel to work and back. Unlike some low-income workers Ehrenreich allowed herself a car in each location, a rent-a-wreck - which also skewed her 'authentic experience' a bit.



During her experiment Ehrenreich worked as a waitress; a caregiver for Alzheimer's patients; a hotel maid; a house cleaner; and a Wal-Mart ladies-wear employee. Each job was physically difficult, exhausting, and demoralizing... since the workers were closely monitored and generally not trusted by the employers.











While at Wal-Mart Ehrenreich had to make a couple of phone calls to line up a new place to live. To achieve this Ehrenreich had to sneak out of Wal-Mart to her car (using maneuvers similar to Keanu Reaves in The Matrix), get the phone numbers, and use a public telephone. Caught by a manager, Ehrenreich (falsely and nervously) stated she was on an official break. All this would give a person heartburn for sure.

Ehrenreich also ate badly most of the time for a variety of reasons: lack of funds (employers routinely held back the first week's wages), no appropriate place to prepare food, no time to eat on the job, etc. Often, Ehrenreich supplemented her diet with fast food. One of Ehrenreich's fellow hotel maids ate hot dog buns for lunch. And a house cleaning mate routinely had a few crackers.



In the end Ehrenreich - making less money at Wal-Mart than she was paying for living quarters, food, and necessities - quit and went back to her normal life.

I'm sure Ehrenreich had good intentions when she embarked on this experiment but she comes across as a kind of 'dilettante' poor person who was not really playing by the rules. First, a real low-wage worker might line up a couple of roommates to share an apartment, which seems a logical thing to do. Second, Ehrenrich knew about the drug testing but - taking a recreational break - smoked marijuana. This resulted in a few frantic days spent drinking gallons of water (to flush out the evidence) plus the cost of system-cleaning medicine from the drugstore (I don't know if this actually works). Third, Ehrenreich could have packed bologna or PB&J sandwiches for lunch, rather than purchasing (relatively expensive) fast food.



Nevertheless, Ehrenreich did bring attention to the very difficult plight of minimum-wage employees in 1998. It was almost impossible for a working single mother, for example, to pay for a place to live, daycare, nutricious food, decent clothing, incidentals, etc. And if a family member needed to see a dentist or doctor they were just out of luck. Moreover, unlike Ehrenreich - who had a cushy upper middle-class life to return to - the economically disadvantaged could only look forward to continued drudgery. They had no hope for a better life. This is truly sad.