There's a story here somewhere
Written: Aug 06 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Insightful portrayals of people struggling to get by.
Cons: The author's biases get in the way.
The Bottom Line: The stories of the people make wading through the author's diatribes a worthwhile experience.
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| Howard_U's Full Review: Barbara Ehrenreich - Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Ge... |
Barbara Ehrenreich makes no pretense of objectively. She believes that it is nearly impossible for one to live on wages at or near the minimum wage, thinks it’s terrible that we don’t pay all workers a living wage and began her adventure largely to prove her point. She maintains her original view throughout her book and seems to believe that she did prove her point.
As a result, this very easily could have become a book that knee-jerk liberals would love and knee-jerk conservatives would dismiss out of hand. As a libertarian probably to the right even of most conservatives on issues like a living wage, I was all set to see Ehrenreich’s effort as a self-serving dalliance with poverty. The word dilettante came to mind even before I got through the introduction.
Yet something about this book got through to me. It is a self-serving dalliance that proves little or nothing, but I have to recommend it anyway. If you care about the working poor in America, and aren’t experiencing that life at the moment, you should read this book.
What the book is about
Ehrenreich goes undercover to live life at or near minimum wage. She tries it for three relatively short stints and then writes a relatively short book (an extension of earlier magazine articles) about her experience. She acknowledges that she’s not going to really get to feel what it’s like to live that life. Rather her aim is “just to see whether I could match income to expenses, as the truly poor attempt to do every day.” She couldn’t, and she gave up pretty easily. The value of the book is not in her experiences, but in the stories she tells of the people around her. Ehrenreich tells a good story and provides us with quite vivid, fascinating portraits of her co-workers, struggling to get by.
The effect of Ehrenreich’s bias
The author’s bias absolutely permeates this book. Even when, as she admits at one point, “there is no evidence anyway that my co-workers share my outrage on their behalf” the expression of outrage is unrelenting. She views the lack of outrage by her new-found peers as a temporary condition. Indeed, she ends her book with the prediction that “Someday . . . they are bound to tire of getting so little in return and to demand to be paid what they are worth.”
Ehrenreich’s experience
She couldn’t make ends meet. She tried in Florida, Maine and Minnesota. She waited tables, scrubbed floors in peoples’ homes (her loathing of the well-to-do really comes out in a blind rage here) and worked at Wal-Mart. In every case, she just couldn’t make it work. Her bills overwhelmed her and she gave up. It’s easy to see why. She has long since lost the ability to minimize expenses that is so vital when living on limited means.
At every location she lived alone, never sharing a room with anyone. Anyone who is at all familiar with living on a near minimum wage income knows that sharing living expenses is an absolute necessity. Let me make one personal aside here. As so many kids do, I dropped out of college for a while to “find myself”. I worked full-time in a cafeteria at minimum wage. At the same time, I worked part time in a bowling alley for less than minimum wage. But I made ends meet. I shared a run-down trailer in some guy’s back yard with another bowling alley employee. I simply could not have made it without sharing the living expense. Why Ehrenreich thought she could make it on her own is completely beyond me. And, in every case, it was the cost of her living space that did her in.
She continued to smoke. In fact, she makes a point of the importance of smoking and drinking to her co-workers. In a way, these were their recreation and almost a declaration of their independence. But, come on. If it’s a choice between another $3.50 pack of cigarettes or another $3.50 meal at the local fast-food joint and you’ve only got $3.50, make the right choice. Or at least don’t tell me that you don’t have a living wage because you made the wrong choice.
She apparently forgot how to make food herself without a refrigerator. In fact, she seems to use the lack of a refrigerator as an excuse to eat out, though admittedly mostly at the cheapest places she can find. I guess she’s forgotten peanut butter and jelly, macaroni and cheese, soup, Spam, and the million other food choices that don’t require a refrigerator.
In summary, the author comes off as a well-meaning upper middle class lady who is absolutely clueless when it comes to working class financial realities.
What makes the book worthwhile
Ehrenreich may not be good with finances, but she’s great with words. She paints the brave struggles of her co-workers in rich colors, capturing their hard work and often desperate circumstances. Granted, you have to wade through her personal story and political views to get there, but it’s worth the swim.
Personally, I learned two things that I’d never fully realized or had long forgotten. The first is how physically demanding low-wage work is. When I was “finding myself” I was 20 years old and could work at physically demanding labor all day with little ill-effect. I don’t think I ever understood the toll that a lifetime of such labor takes on the body. Ehrenreich shows us in graphic detail the toll taken on her co-workers.
The second, related in a way, is how important health insurance is. When I was 20 I hardly needed health insurance. Since getting out of college, I’ve always had minimal health insurance through either my or my wife’s work. True, it was with an HMO of variable quality, but I always had someplace to go at minimal cost if I really needed medical attention. Most of the jobs Ehrenreich worked at had little or no health benefits. Many of the physical problems associated with year after year of very hard work went untreated because there simply was not money or insurance to treat them.
I certainly haven’t changed my mind on universal health insurance, which, as presented by Ms. Clinton, was a horrid example of bureaucratic over-kill, but I’m far more ready to support efforts to provide health care services for those who need them than I was before I read this book. Any book that can make a person change long held political beliefs is a powerful book indeed.
Final Thoughts
A quote on the back dust jacket says, “This brave and frank book is ultimately a challenge to create a less divided society.” On the contrary, it will more likely deepen the divisions. Ehrenreich is gratuitously hostile to all employers. Her distorted view breeds hostility and invites hostile response. For example, when discussing drug testing she speculates on why employers require such tests (as if the answer isn’t obvious). Her answer? “I suspect that the demeaning effect of testing may also hold some attraction for employers.” What uncalled for venom! Most employers, like most people in all walks of life, are decent people who would not be attracted to the demeaning of anyone. Such insults to an entire group of people, which with any other target would be considered unconscionable stereotyping, permeate the book. This is hardly the roadmap to a less divided society.
Yet behind the venom is a story worth telling. And, when she’s not ranting and calling Jesus Christ a “wine-guzzling vagrant and precocious socialist” she tells the story well. If you agree with her biases, you’ll likely love every word of this book. If your biases lie in other directions, you probably won’t think much of this author and her efforts. But it’s hard to imagine that you won’t be touched by the stories of the hard-working people just trying to get by.
The people will stay will you: Holly, cleaning other people’s bathrooms on one foot because the other, ankle sprained, won’t bear weight; George, the Czech dishwasher struggling to learn English and remain optimistic through some rough times; Gail, making ends meet by living with a guy who hits on her; too many others to mention here. When the author gets out of the way, this is really their story, and they are people worth getting to know.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Howard_U
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Member: Howard Underwood
Location: Fremont, CA
Reviews written: 35
Trusted by: 29 members
About Me:
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