Thoughts on "Nickel and Dimed"

When I first began to read "Nickel and Dimed", I thought I was going to be reading a book about a woman who thinks she knows how the "working" class lives, but really has never experienced it herself. The book was completely different than what I expected.
Although Barbara did not fully live the life as a minimum-waged worker living paycheck to paycheck, she pointed out important issues that many people do not discuss. She was able to experience enough through the jobs that she acquired to understand that minimum wage is not something anyone can live off of, but many (especially families) are expected to.
I liked how she gave accounts of people she worked with and encountered and how they were struggling to make ends meet. In the Evaluation, I glorify Barbara for saying that the people in the working class do jobs that help keep up the lifestyles of those in the middle and upper class. While housekeepers, maids, and nannies are cleaning and watching other people's houses, their own houses and children are being neglected. They work harder and harder everyday to NOT get any further in what they expect to be a better life.
The book definitely helped me appreciate people who give me my food at a drive thru or who ring my purchases up at Wal-Mart. I am one of the many minimum wage workers, and I understand the hardship of trying to get by and being treated unfairly by customers and employers. The book was a huge eye-opener and should be read by more people.

First Impressions of "Nickel and Dimed"

After reading the introduction and first chapter of "Nickel and Dimed," I don't think I would have made it the first day in trying to make a living with minimum wage and just going out there on my own, trying to find affordable housing and purposely find a low paid job knowing the amount of education I have and spending two years to find out if I can survive on wages available to the unskilled. Ehrenreich admitted she cheated a little, but if I were the one writing the article and book, I wouldn't have survived and would have cheated through the whole experience.

I hope the rest of you enjoyed reading the first chapter of the book as much as I did since Ehrenreich describes a lot about the people she meets and the restaurants she works at. What were your impressions of the first chapter?

Ehrenreich has her own blog if anyone is interested in reading. She talks a lot about poverty, the economy, and feminism. Read her blog at http://ehrenreich.blogs.com/barbaras_blog/

Barbara Ehrenreich's comment

The author of Nickle and Dimed explores in this article the media coverage of poverty, and the way in which we don't see how the current crisis affects the people at the bottom. Read the full comment at The Nation.