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.

Absolutely appalling attitude on the part of the author.

I'll simply cite a few examples, and let you make up your mind:

Pg. 109: "...in a huge, gorgeous country house with hand-painted walls, I encounter a shelf full of neoconservative encomiums to the status quo and consider using germ warfare against the owners... take one of the E. Coli-rich rags that's been used on the toilets and use it to "clean" the kitchen counters..."

Pg. 102: "Gloria sends me to Karen at another... volunteer agency, where I am told... I can pick up a food voucher at a South Portland Shop-n-Save. What would I like for dinner? The question seems frivolous or mocking. What do I want for dinner? How about a polenta-crusted salmon filet with pesto sauce and a nice glass of J. Lohr Chardonnay?"

Pg. 165: "Once I stand and watch helplessly while some rugrat pulls everything he can reach off the racks, and the thought that abortion is wasted on the unborn must show on my face..."

Pg. 62: "Today we will be working the locked Alzheimer's ward, bringing breakfast from the main kitchen downstairs... serving the residents... I rush around pouring coffee... and taking "orders", trying to think of it as a restaurant, although in a normal restaurant, I cannot help thinking, very few customers smell like they're carrying a fresh dump in their undies."

And there are many more like that.

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?

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?

I first heard about this book when I was a "wet behind the ears" college student. A sociology professor recommended the book for its discussion on the realities of low-wage America. The recommendation was quickly stowed away into my ever-growing TBR and quickly forgotten.

This marks my first (and now last) attempt at reading this title.

What. A. Let down.

While the book accomplishes what it sets out to do -- prompting a discussion surrounding a working class that has gone largely unaddressed -- she remains a horribly privileged white woman who regularly used her privilege whenever any inconvenience negatively impacted her. Although she attempted to present herself as this educated "savior" looking to expose the hardships of poverty, she took on patronizing and dehumanizing tones. It became apparent that she viewed the poor as lazy and needy. Didn't these workers know that office jobs and careers were a college degree away?! "The fact that anyone is working this job at all can be taken as prima facie evidence of some kind of desperation or at least a history of mistakes and disappointments," (pg. 78). This may be true to a certain capacity; however, having a middle-classed, white woman refer to a working individuals decisions as "mistakes" just reeks of arrogance.

Perhaps the final nail in the coffin was the repeated racial remarks she made about minorities. At one point in the novel, she attempted to argue that the negative perception people had of her as a maid gave her insight into the experiences of black Americans (pg. 100). BFFR, lady. Later in the novel, she voices an ignorant comment about Latinos that finally made me DNF:

"[W]arnings about the heat and allergies put me off, not to mention my worry that the Latinos might be hogging all the crap jobs and substandard housing for themselves, as they so often do," (pg. 121).

I honestly can't stomach this book anymore. Perhaps this book is aimed at a particular audience and I am not one of them. But as other reviewers have already stated, the concept could have been great but was hindered by the author's patronizing and dehumanizing portrayal of the working class. No thanks.

This book has deservedly become a classic because of its premise: Barbara Ehrenreich, the author, spent several months actually trying to live on minimum-wage jobs as a house cleaner, waitress, sales clerk, and nursing-home aide.

I'm in awe of Ehrenreich's courage and originality in taking on this venture, and her writing is readable and vivid: The exhaustion, aching back, itching rash, sweat rolling down her legs, crabby customers, besmeared toilets, never-ending toil; scrubbing floors on her hands and knees, and running back and forth to tables, and folding the napkins just so, while an elderly resident suffering from dementia throws a glass of milk all over her, and the (male) boss snaps at the (female) workers for daring to sit down for one second...Repeated seven days a week. Finally, after a double shift, to collapse in a "home" where she can barely fit into the bathroom.
Ehrenreich combines her narrative with bits of sociological analysis, data, and snippy commentary.

My main criticism is that it feels too detached. I don't get any deep, gut sense of despair, exhaustion, or panic--most notably, no sense of the financial desperation that most of these workers surely must face. Partly, I think that's because Ehrenreich isn't really living this life. As she admits, she always knows that there's a middle-class bank account and home cushioning her, and she can return to her own real world whenever she wants.
Of course that's unavoidable, but maybe the book could have provided more insight if she'd talked with some of her co-workers or their friends. I understand that she couldn't "break her cover" by formally interviewing them. But could she, for instance, have hung out and gone drinking on a weekend?

Although this book was researched and written nearly a quarter-century ago, it is still--unfortunately--relevant today.
I hope that I will have much more appreciation for the workers I encounter the next time I eat at a restaurant or stay at a hotel.

For all the author says about the greatness of the American blue-collar worker (she even brags about her husband being one), she seems to think the work is beneath her. It seems like she is trying to shock her readers by exposing the harshness of poverty. But is it really that shocking for her employer to tell her she missed a spot when she's working as a cleaning woman? Sure, there are bad bosses out there, but you can't expect your boss to overlook your bad job cleaning a house just because you have a good education. Also, although I agree life can be desperate on a minimum wage, the author makes her own situation more desperate by refusing to share a room with someone else. It also strikes me as a little unrealistic that there are no assholes among the ranks of her heroic underclass, only among the bosses. Come on. Maybe I am just jaded because I feel like she has only written this book to communicate to other wealthy people who just CAN'T IMAGINE being poor, while my life is somewhere in between hers and the people she writes about.

Now, there are probably TONS of first-person stories written by people who are poor or were poor. "Angela's Ashes," anyone? They were literally starving. Even the writer of "Shattered Dreams" has only one suitcase full of worldly belongings when she goes off to get married... And she says she remembers helping her mother pour the concrete for their cellar. These are people I'd rather read about. People who are good writers, but don't brag about their intellect; people who experienced hardships, but made them into a damn good story.

This is a horrible book. The way the author tries to put herself in the shoes of the people who actually experience these stories is just unreasonable. I am sure nobody would choose to live the way they do if they had the means to have a different life.

3 stars - It was good.

I love the concept of this book and thoroughly enjoyed reading about the author's experiences with going "undercover" to the land of the poor working class. With the current ongoing debate for raising minimum wage to a ridiculous 3-4X its current level, I also found this to be a timely read. The author makes an excellent point in her summary that just because a job is "unskilled" that by no means translates to it being easy. Unfortunately, all of this fascinating material was detracted from by several issues, namely the author's poorly presented illogical arguments (more of a commentary), her prejudices, and redundant preaching for unionization.

Something is wrong, very wrong, when a single person in good health, a person who in addition possesses a working car, can barely support herself by the sweat of her brow. You don't need a degree in economics to see that wages are too low and rents too high.

1. You don't need a degree in economics to understand that if minimum wage were tripled overnight, inflation would trickle into every consumer product and service, eventually putting the minimum wage earner right back into the exact same financial struggle from whence they started.

2. Something is wrong, very wrong, when with a first world mentality one assumes that it is some sort of a right for every person to have their own car and a dwelling all to themselves. There's this radical idea, called a "roommate", that works wonders and creates economic magic. In my younger years I utilized this amazing formula myself and saw an instant 40% drop in my bills. Brilliant! If people want their own place, they will need to earn that luxury.....and it's not that difficult to accomplish if you choose something other than a "minimum", unskilled type of job.

3. You don't need a degree in economics to understand that a minimum wage job should be used as a starting point, or as a flexible job for teenagers, retirees, and family members looking to supplement the household income. It should not be used as a lifelong career for people wanting any semblances of luxury in life, especially if you are a single parent.

I also felt the author was very judgmental towards overweight people, particularly women. Example: Those of us who work in ladies' are for obvious reasons a pretty lean lot - probably, by Minnesota standards, candidates for emergency IV nutritional supplementation - and we live with the fear of being crushed by some wide-body as she hurtles through the narrow passages from Faded Glory to woman size, lost in fantasies involving svelte Kathie Lee sheaths. She also mentions numerous times that she is frequently looked at admiringly by men, and overall an attractive woman. Now, I am an unusually fit person, with years of weight lifting and aerobics behind me. Even knowing that this book is now 13 years old, I was, shall we say, surprised, when I viewed pictures of the author. I would be interested to know if she still holds her judgmental stance towards overweight people today.

My main complaint with this book was the author's gushing love affair with unionized labor -- an idea she tries to push on numerous coworkers without any explanation of how it would benefit them (if she did, it wasn't included in her book). One could easily use this book as part of a drinking game simply by employing the keywords "union" or "teamster". I would expect less redundancy from an author with her amount of experience and education. Her incessant mentioning of unions brought back horrible memories from the position I used to hold at a unionized hospital. In my personal experience, the union promoted mediocrity and I resented being paid the same as other employees with substandard work ethic. I also resented benefits being negotiated on my behalf, which often traded what I cared about most in exchange for things that did nothing at all for me (typically they were parent friendly benefits). I far prefer to negotiate for myself and have so far always succeeded at negotiating a salary that reflects my merits and work ethic vs being paid an "average" that covers all gamuts. In summary, just know that you will have a lot of pro-unionization forced down your throat and if you are not a fan, eye-rolling will occur. Often. Very often.

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Favorite Quote: I don't know what it is about the American upper class, but they seem to be shedding their pubic hair at an alarming rate.

First Sentence: Mostly out of laziness, I decide to start my low-wage life in the town nearest to where I actually live, Key West, Florida, which with a population of about 25,000 is elbowing its way up to the status of a genuine city.

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

Barbara Ehrenreich tells her story of working 'undercover' in three jobs for poverty-level wages in an experiment to understand exactly how millions of Americans get by in their daily lives.

Though this book and its experiment is twenty years old, it's depressing that no matter how much has changed, a lot has stayed the same. I've worked minimum wage jobs before, but always as a student. Whatever its flaws, this book is a stark reminder to pay more attention to the people around me and not take them for granted.

Turned me into a bit of a bore, regaling people with information about how much you wouldn't make at Wal-Mart and how short your bathroom breaks would be, the brutality of minimum wage; what if you weren't smart enough or educated enough to get out of the minimum wage bracket, it isn't enough to support even one person on a tight budget. I was tense the whole time I was reading it and couldn't wait for the author to go back to her upper middle class lifestyle so that I could go back to mine. I think this is an important book and was glad to hear that my oldest son had already read it.