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

A startling, revealing look at the struggle of working class people in this nation to survive—and the societal structures and obstacles that make such more difficult than many in this country believe.  Investigative journalist Barbara Ehrenreich finds out first-hand what it is to try to make a living as a waitress, housekeeper, and more—and puts the personal story behind the facts that uphold the struggle of the poor and labor class.  

From the publisher: "Our sharpest and most original social critic goes "undercover" as an unskilled worker to reveal the dark side of American prosperity.

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 int 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. You will never see anything -- from a motel bathroom to a restaurant meal -- in quite the same way again."