Nickel and Dimed 20th Anniversary Edition- On Not Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich

3.3 (3)
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Web ID: 18023687

The New York Times bestselling work of undercover reportage from our sharpest and most original social critic, with a new foreword by Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted Millions of Americans work full time, year round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job-any job-can be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 an hour. To find out, Ehrenreich left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered. Moving from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, she worked as a waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing-home aide, and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. She lived in trailer parks and crumbling residential motels. Very quickly, she discovered that no job is truly "unskilled," that even the lowliest occupations require exhausting mental and muscular effort. She also learned that one job is not enough, you need at least two if you intend to live indoors. Nickel and Dimed reveals low-rent America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity-a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate stratagems for survival. Read it for the smoldering clarity of Ehrenreich's perspective and for a rare view of how "prosperity" looks from the bottom.

  • Product Features

    • Suggetsed age range- Adult
    • Format- Paperback
    • Product dimensions- 5.3" W x 8" H x 0.8" D
    • Genre- Social sciences
    • Publisher- Picador, Publication date- 06-01-2021
    • Page count- 256
    • ISBN- 9781250808318
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Ratings & Reviews

3.3/5

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2 years ago
from North Carolina

A waste

The deeper you go you start to wonder if she’s actually gaslighting herself. For a person who has never known "real" struggles and to "pretend" to know what that feels like is mockery of those in society that live this truth. I would rather have read about her interviewing or following someone in these situations and being "real" about her adventures.

Customer review from barnesandnoble.com

4 years ago
from Florida

Begins the conversation

I read this in college back in the early 90s. It opened my eyes to the idea that minimum wage is not a living wage. I cannot honestly remember thinking the author was arrogant (as other reviewers have mentioned) because I was focused on the theme of the book. It may not be a literary masterpiece, but it’s an easy read and a good introduction to the topic.

Recommends this product

Customer review from barnesandnoble.com

4 years ago
from Denver, CO

Amazing book...tasteless pick by B&N.

Truly a special, important book. It’s horrifying how little has changed since it was first published (in fact, how much worse it has gotten). Ehrenreich has a wonderful warm voice and the prose reads quickly and naturally, even as it investigates complex social systems in detail. However, I think it’s tone deaf that Barnes and Noble is making their minimum wage workers promote a book about how minimum wage can’t get you a living in this country, while they all make minimum wage and suffer and struggle to make a living. Just my two cents.

Recommends this product

Customer review from barnesandnoble.com