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.

For the most part, this is a really eye-opening read. It describes an experiement by journalist Barbara Ehrenreich where she takes a series of minimum wage jobs (waitress, hotel maid, housekeeper, nursing home aide, and Wal-Mart employee) and tries to survive on the earnings from those jobs. "Surviving," it turns out, means living in crappy hotels and eating fast food while trying to keep two jobs. Her descriptions of the dirty secrets of the jobs she takes are really interesting - when she cleans houses, she describes how the maids essentially just wipe away dirt without actually bothering to disinfect surfaces - but I'll be honest, I was a little disappointed by how few explosive behind-the-scenes revelations she gives her readers. Also, she's really reluctant to tell exactly which restaurant, maid service, hotel chain, and nursing home she was employed by, although she had no trouble name-dropping when it came time to work for Wal-Mart. I wanted to know exactly which restaurant that was "part of a well-known national chain" (called "Jerry's" in Ehrenreich's book) makes servers prepare salad with their bare hands and usually doesn't have soap in the employee bathrooms. As muckrakers go, Ehrenreich is a bit of a wimp.
She also can't seem to shake the whole "I Am A Fearless And Noble Journalist Who Sacrifices Everything FOR THE PEOPLE" mindset she starts out with. When she quits each minimum-wage job to move on to the next one, she makes sure to tell her fellow employees that she's (gasp!) NOT actually a divorced woman with no college education, she's actually a JOURNALIST with a PHD who's INVESTIGATING THIS ESTABLISHMENT FOR A BOOK!!!
Ehrenreich is clearly expecting her fellow employees to be shocked and awed by her espionage skills and applaud her for pretending to be One Of Them so she can write a best-selling tell-all, but that doesn't happen. Every single time Ehrenreich reveals her true identity, the response is an overwhelming, "Um...good for you?"
And it is hilarious.

Read for: Surviving the American Dream

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. . . .

This book is not new, but it is highly relevant - particularly considering the strikes going on in the United States at the moment. You think it’s possible to work yourself out of poverty in land of the American dream? Think again. It’s not possible to live on one minimum wage job. The author, Barbara, who tries it out as a low wage worker, soon finds this out. Adequate housing is also nearly impossible to get. Despite the 20+ years since this book was released, the situation has gotten worse rather than better.