The premise was really intriguing, but the execution didn't work. To me there was something unsavory about an educated and relatively affluent woman going under cover to play at being a poor person living on minimum wage so she could write about it.
Others have done a brilliant job of explaining a bit more in their reviews why this was so problematic.

I'm just not moved to write much more except that despite my criticism, this book did make me think about things in a different way, which I guess is not a bad outcome. (For days afterward my husband had to listen to my wild ideas about how to solve the housing problem.)

i'm having the same reservations about this as i had with the so-old-why-am-i-even-complaining-about-it ten days in a madhouse by nellie bly (or that book by the white guy who put himself in blackface to expose racism in the american south??? or tyra donning a fat suit to know what it's like to be an obese person?): why do we need people in positions of privilege to put themselves through these little experiments just to find out what every poor (mentally ill, black, fat) person already fucking knows? why can't we give a voice to people who actually experience this shit, people who can't just pluck themselves out of the situations they've purposefully put themselves in, people who can't just return to some life where they have money in their bank account and not much to worry about it. merely acknowledging your place of privilege does nothing to dismantle the system from which you benefit.

i really like the fact that the most popular review for this book is by a woman who advocates the selective "breeding" of poor folk. i mean, the very fact that human pregnancy is being referred to as "breeding" should be a tip off that someone is a big, flaming sack of shit, but i just can't with this kind of bull: "Having children and expecting others to pay for them is irresponsible and parasitic." THIS IS NOT REALLY HOW WELFARE WORKS EVERYBODY. if you're gonna complain about this, i hope you advocate for the abolition of roads, libraries, parks, and everything that has ever existed due to government funds or intervention. i hope you only ever travel via dirt roads and attend private schools, never experience the joy of a library or the ~great outdoors~ at a national public park. 'cause fuck that shit.

i also just want to share this because it's really fucking dumb and shows the other side of dumbass logic:



i have other thoughts about poverty & children, and they're mostly just POOR PEOPLE ARE ALLOWED TO HAVE CHILDREN. POOR PEOPLE ARE ALSO ALLOWED TO NOT HAVE CHILDREN IF THAT IS WHAT THEY WANT. POOR PEOPLE REMAIN HUMANS DESPITE THEIR POVERTY. TREAT THEM AS SUCH, YOU SHITTY DICKS.

---

okay, i'm actually finished the book now (i tend to make preemptive reviews, it seems) and everything still stands, but it's important to note that i did overall appreciate nickel and dimed. i just think the plight of poor ppl would better be exemplified by, idk, actual poor people. stinks to me of co-opting someone else's struggle to make your own point. and it isn't a particularly "liberal" point, unless you're the sad kind of person who thinks rich people are rich 'cause they work hard and poor people are poor because they're lazy. the american dream is hopelessly fucked. barbara ehrenreich was on the right track with this, but really, sitting back and writing books from an upper middle class viewpoint doesn't really do much to help the poor.

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.

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.

САЩ е страната на неограничените възможности, нали? Нали?

Далеч не всички хора мислят така обаче и това особено много се отнася до самите американци - не всички, но една определена група от тях (съвсем не малка), която смята, че американското общество е несправедливо, подтисническо към бедните и ако си на дъното на икономическата йерархия няма никакъв начин да се издигнеш, да спечелиш пари и да заживееш нормален живот.

Авторката на книгата се заема да докаже тия свои вярвания, като се опита, в рамките на 3 месеца, да започне от нулата и да се опита да успее да се издигне до що годе нормален живот. Изоставя своята професия, мести се в град в който никой не я познава, почти без пари и се прави, че няма образование. Опитва се да почне някаква смотана работа и да види дали ще успее да избута, да спестява някакви пари и т.н.

За съжаление не й се получава, поради което, разбира се, прави изводите, че бедните трябва да бъдат всячески подпомагани с всякакви правителствени програми, помощи и т.н. за да се оправят в живота.

За всеки, който живее в не толкова богата държава (като мен примерно) и който не е разглезен келеш, опитите на дебела��а, богата лелка да живее "бедно" и да работи "здраво" изглеждат повече от смешни. Да живееш в мотел едва ли е начина да почнеш от нулата, нито пък да успееш да спестиш пари, ако плащаш повече от половината си заплата за него. Маркови полички и блузки не се купуват, ако се опитваш да си беден, нито се яде в ресторанти. И после се чудиш що парите не ти стигат.

Повече от очевидно е, че авторката (професионална писателка, на политически книги със социалистически уклон), използва "експеримента" си само за да пробута поредната доза от политическата си идеология.

Да беше дошла да поживее в България, да я видя.

This book really illustrated what is meant by the "working poor"

The author, in good health, with a car, can barely make ends meet for just a few months. Imagine those who work this way their entire life. What happens if you need dental or medical care? Many low wage jobs offer no inusrance or very poor insurance.

The statement is often made "look for a better job". In what spare time? Get an education? Yes, certainly, IF you can get a loan for tuition.

This book does point out that many people are trapped in poverty. Almost all the women Ms Ehrenreich works with share a rental apartment. Because the number of affordable apartments avialable to low wage workers is a case where the supply available is much less than the demand.

One of the ladies working with MS. Ehrenreich in a maid cleaning job is quoted as saying "It would be nice if I could take a day off--If I had too--and still be able to buy groceries the next day."

Very thought provoking. Well worth a read by anyone.

"Nickel and Dimed" amounts to a good account of living a back-breaking existence while doing unskilled work. It offers a ground-up view of what it's like to apply for work at Wal-Mart, what sorts of neighbors you have when you live in a pay-by-the-week hotel, and the crap food you're forced to live on when you earn $6 an hour. Barbara Ehrenreich is a biology PhD who decided not to interview poor people or follow them around. Instead she decided it would be more interesting to be a low-wage worker for awhile. It makes for some sensational copy and good anecdotes.

But it's not really a great piece of scholarship. Lo and behold, we are forced to conclude, minimum wage (circa 2000) is not a sustainable wage for any kind of living. Wages are too low and rents are too high. Was there another possible outcome?

Sure, we read the book to confirm our beliefs about low-wage work – that you just can't live on the wages, that a lot of these jobs are exhausting, that you're treated without dignity (both by middle management as well as the public-at-large), that you have to suffer through drug tests, that your first paycheck is often withheld, that the circumstances of the working poor don't improve along with the fortunes of the company, etc. ("The Maids charges $25 per person-hour. The company gets $25 and we get $6.65 for each hour we work?") But don't mistake this book for one that does hypothesis testing.

But what it makes for is a good personal journey. And it is read best as a narrative of her own feelings and impressions. On being a maid, she writes that "even convenience store clerks, who are $6-an-hour gals themselves, seem to look down on us." … "There's no pay for the half hour or so we spend in the office at the end of the day, sorting out the dirty rags before they're washed and refilling our cleaning fluid bottles." … "As far as I can figure, my coworkers' neediness – because that's what it is – stems from chronic deprivation."

And at Wal-Mart, employees can wear blue jeans on Fridays, but they have to pay $1 for the privilege.

But insofar as it's a personal journey, you also have to get through a lot of self-aggrandizement. Of the circumstances of her coworkers, she writes, "it strikes me, in my middle-class solipsism, that there is gross improvidence in some of these arrangements." Upon seeing a church called 'Deliverance', she writes, "Could there really be a whole congregation of people who have never heard of the James Dickey novel and subsequent movie?"

At the end of the book, she has answered her question, "how do these people get by on their pay?" with a resounding, "not well." And so, the main question she wants to know is why the working poor suffers its indignities, both individually and collectively. And she offers some good insight – that there are costs ("friction") to trying to find a new job or moving somewhere, that the working poor are often ill-informed, that corporate and management policies are designed with carrot-and-stick to urge and threaten the submission of its employees. And to the degree that it's universally true, it's fun to ponder.

I had to read and annotate this book for an AP English class in High school, and before I tell you about how much I not only disliked the book, but also the authors point of view on EVERYTHING, you must know that I love to read and that it's a rare thing for me to come by a book that I disliked so much I could rip it apart. A book I spent money on, I could easily tear up.

She is so judgmental and rude in this book it's unbelievable.
She CHOSE to give up her "upper class" life for a LIMITED amount of time for journalism, knowing full-well when this is all over with, that she would be making a lot of money- and yet she still complains about EVERYTHING she does. This book doesn't explain the struggles of living on minimum wage- it explains how much this whiny, spoiled woman hates pretending to be poor. This lady thinks she is "oh so superior" compared to everyone else (and by everyone I mean her lower-class companions) that she can't even make friends or keep a friend. Instead she judges everyone she sees for having this lifestyle, huffs-and-puffs in her head, and thinks how she's so glad she's only pretending to have this lifestyle while wishing she could tell everyone "Yeah I'm actually not poor- just a journalist."

NOBODY CARES

It amazes me that she could possibly think so highly of herself that she refuses to even attempt at friends, because she knows that this isn't her real life. She would be embarrassed to be their friends when she goes back to her wealth. She is such a hypocrite about every little thing!

Also there was a certain part in the book that made me lose ANY traces of any IDEAS for respect for her that I MAY have gotten- automatically.
She mentions that she is an atheist, and one night she is bored so she decides to "crash" an event she noticed a church was having.
So, she goes to THEIR church, purely for "entertainment" purposes, to laugh at everyone in her head for believing in a higher power. REALLY? I don't care if you are an atheist, Muslim, Christian, or whatever! Just because you don't agree with other religions, that gives you NO right to go to THEIR property to make fun of them or get a little "laugh". That's so low, and disrespectful. I'm a christian and there're other religions I do not agree with, but do you see me going to THEIR church to tell them they are wrong? To mock them behind their backs and then write a book talking about it?? I may be young, but my maturity level is sky-rocketing next to hers.

I don't care about the big words she uses- ANYONE can do that. If you don't believe it, then go away and mind your own business. It's another thing when you really are considering to go into that religion, but she had NO intentions on doing that, because she is "alwaaaays right" she can never do anything wrong, because she is so perfect! Everything she thinks is true and there's no way around it!
NEWS FLASH LADY- YOU'RE A FOOL.

I'm sorry but this book made me so angry. She had a negative view on everything, she was racist, rude, crude, and most of all a hypocrite. If you're like me and don't like reading books that are all about this kind if character, then don't read this. It was a complete waste of my life.
She doesn't even deserve one star.

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

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.

Hoooo boy this did not age well.

The first time I read this book was probably in 2002. I was 20 years old and had recently failed out of my fancy, expensive private university - partly because of illness, partly because of bad choices, and partly because I had to work three jobs on top of a full course load to be able to afford that school. By 2002, I was working at Target for around $7 an hour and had spent several months sleeping on my aunt's couch while I saved enough money for first and last months' rent on an apartment in a government-subsidized low-income housing complex. I struggled to pay my rent (which was "only" $365 a month, utilities not included) and got rather familiar with the three-day pay-or-vacate notice, spent a lot of time waiting for Tacoma's inadequate public transportation in the rain, and one of the most exciting moments of my life at that time was when the grocery store across the street put Top Ramen on sale at 10 for $1. I lived next door to a weed dealer, once called 911 when I spotted someone dressed all in black prowling around people's balconies at midnight, got a couple of terrifyingly indecent proposals from men in the parking lot, and spent a lot of time fending off Army recruiters. If I was scheduled for a closing shift at Target, I often got out of work after the buses had stopped running, which meant I either had to find a ride from a coworker or spend 2 hours' salary on a cab. In a nutshell, I was poor and miserable.

So when I read this book, it was like a revelation. I was overwhelmed at the fact that someone many social ladder rungs above me had actually noticed us down there at the bottom and tried to do something about it. The poor in America really are invisible and I usually felt like I was the only person I knew who was struggling that hard (which was probably not true, but these aren't the kind of topics people like to talk about). So to have my experience validated like that, without the kind of judgment that usually came along with it ("Why didn't you just stay in college?" "Can't you manage your money?" "No wonder you're so poor, you just had lunch at McDonald's." "You must be very irresponsible.") was incredible to me.

I've moved up in the world quite a lot since then - after having spent my first 25 years living in poverty, I got married to a lovely man who came from a family that was much better off than mine. We struggled financially the first few years we were married, as just about everyone does, but now I'm writing this review on a fairly nice computer in a home that I own, and although my daughter has just outgrown all of her shoes I'm not worried about how we're going to pay for new ones. But I have not forgotten what my early life was like.

Obviously this book isn't a perfect representation of that world, since Barbara Ehrenreich starts her experiment with considerable advantages - some starting capital, a lifetime of good medical care, a car, and no small children, to start with. But it's a reasonable approximation and she does acknowledge these advantages and point out that most people down at the bottom of the socioeconomic scale don't have them. On the whole, though, it's an accurate and compassionate account of what that kind of life is like, accompanied with plenty of broader information about the working poor and the circumstances - personal, economic, and political - that tend to keep them there.

If I mentioned every point she made that made me think YES, EXACTLY, I'd basically be quoting the entire book (my Kindle edition is filled with highlights) so I won't do that. Just, please, read it, especially if you believe that welfare recipients should be drug tested or that these people wouldn't be poor anymore if they would just stop smoking. Do us all a favor and find out what that life is really like.