Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

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Citation:
Enrenreich, Barbara.  Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America. New York: Holt Paperbacks, 2002. Print.


Annotation:

The American dream is alive and well. It basically states that if you work hard and treat people well, you should be able to make a living. So what happens when you wake up, hop a bus across town, clock in at a big box mart and try to make ends meet? Let’s just say reality has some cold hard truths to dish you up for dinner.

Nomination Thoughts:

Barbara Ehrenreich works first and foremost as a writer for various media outlets. As part of the genesis for her book, she became curious how hard it would be for a single woman to live off wages from an entry level type job. So she devised an undercover experiment that would take her across the country to see how she would fair. She sets about some basic rules that in some ways diminish what a low paid worker would have access to- mainly a car and food. Along the way she takes jobs as a waitress in Florida, house cleaner in Maine and Walmart worker in Minnesota. By the way, she sadly found Minnesota not quite up to its “Minnesota Nice” sterotype. She basically finds no feasible way to live off the wages from those jobs and just how expensive being poor is.

What I was most taken with is how surprised Ehrenreich was about the working conditions in which she found herself. She does an excellent job walking the reader through her eye opening experiences. Ehrenreich introduces co-workers who don’t have the luxury of knowing they can high tail to a comfortable life if they choose. Her writing spares nothings in saying how hard of life the people are living. I found myself crying when she wrote about a pregnant coworker who was sick and yet unable to afford adequate health care. It seems each of the people she comes across has a role to play. The managers work to keep the workers in line and happy not to have union protection at Walmart. Ehrenreich finds herself almost invisible to the people whose houses she cleans- something she finds uncomfortably intimate.

Through the course of the book Ehrenreich grows in her understanding of the struggle of low wage earners. Each place she works pits her against a machinery that only wants to take as much out of her as possible while paying her as little possible. I found myself caring about the people she wrote about and wanting to find some steel toed boots for some of the jerks she came across too. She had an engaging and thoughtful way of presenting her story that made me tear through the pages.

Nomination?
This is a worthy book for our mock Printz Award. I think this book can have great appeal for a YA reader interested in what it will take to make it in today's world. It's rough out there!

Genre: Alex Award