I just finished reading Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed and it really opened my eyes. Clevery subtitled “How (Not) To Get By in America,” the book is a chronicle of Ehrenreich’s “adventures“ in survival as a member of the low-wage workforce that serves our meals, cleans our homes, and cares for our elderly.
The book is divided into three sections, each of which finds Ehrenreich in a new location, looking for work and a place to live. Her first stop was Key West, where she took a job as a waitress at one restaurant before moving to a busier one attached to a hotel. A bit later, she tried to increase her income by picking up some additional work as a maid at said hotel, but the exhaustion (and accompanying pain) got to her and she decided just to stick with the waitressing.
In the second section, she journeyed to Maine, where she picked up a job working for a cleaning service during the week and working at a nursing home on the weekends. It was the “off season” in Maine, meaning weekly rents were far cheaper at the extended-stay motels, but she still had problems making ends meet. There’s no doubt that the tourist season would have bankrupted her or had her sharing a single-room efficiency with several other workers.
Finally, it was on to the heartland of America, Minnesota, where she was shocked to discover a severe affordable housing shortage. She took a position as an “associate” at Wal-Mart to gain additional insight into the largest private employer in the United States (possibly the world), but no matter how hard she tried, she just could not afford to live, even in the seediest of motels with assistance from local charities and the State.
In each location, Ehrenreich tried to live as cheaply as possible, often finding shelter at hotels, motels, and trailer parks that cater to those unable to afford an apartment. And, in Minneapolis, when she couldn’t even afford to do that, a local organization suggested she live at a shelter (while working full-time at Wal-Mart, mind you) until she had saved enough to afford the first month’s rent and security deposit for an apartment in the tight real estate market.
While it is arguable that she could not even hope to capture the complete experience by spending just a month in each place (and, of course, being able to return to her “real” life at any time), she was able to glean a good deal of insight into the struggles of low wage workers in this country. Her final chapter, in fact, articulated perfectly some of the thoughts and feelings I’ve had for some time. Here’s an excerpt:
When poor single mothers had the option of remaining out of the labor force on welfare, the middle and upper middle class tended to view them with a certain impatience, if not disgust. The welfare poor were excoriated for their laziness, their persistence in reproducing in unfavorable circumstances, their presumed addictions, and above all for their “dependency.” Here they were, content to live off “government handouts,” instead of seeking “self-sufficiency,” like everyone else, through a job. They needed to get their act together, learn how to wind an alarm clock, get out there and work. But now that government has largely withdrawn its “handouts,” now that the overwhelming majority of the poor are out there toiling in Wal-Mart or Wendy’s—well, what are we to think of them? Disapproval and condescension no longer apply, so what outlook makes sense?
Guilt, you may be thinking warily. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to feel? But guilt doesn’t go anywhere near far enough; the appropriate emotion is shame—shame at our own dependency, in this case, on the underpaid labor of others. When someone works for less pay than she can live on—when, for example, she goes hungry so that you can eat more cheaply and conveniently—then she has made a great sacrifice for you, she has made a gift of some part of her abilities, her health, and her life. The “working poor,” as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society. They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high. To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor, to everyone else.
I highly recommend checking this book out if your a social activist interested in pushing for a living wage or are simply interested in the nature of labor and the workforce in America.
Comments
Great book! Another you might like is <cite>Affluenza: When Too Much is Never Enough</cite>, another eye opening read about rampant consumerism and some who decide to actively take a stand against it :-)
Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me!) did a 30 Days episode where he and his fiancé lived on minimum wage. He has a nice summary at the end about the difficulty of living with little/no money, how one injury can just send you into some serious debt, how it’s no wonder that people find it hard to stay together when they’re so crushingly poor. But no matter how hard it got, he acknowledged that knowing he could get back to his regular life (in NYC, no less) made it much easier.
Donna also recommends Bait and Switch, also by Ehrenreich.
@Scott: That certainly looks like an interesting one. I’ll add it to my list.
@Mike: Yeah, I am a huge fan of 30 Days, and that episode (the pilot, if memory serves) was amazing. I just wish the seasons were a bit longer; it seemed like season 2 was over before it started. Tell Donna thanks for the other book recommendation too. Right now I’m reading several books, The 2% Solution being the social/political book de jour, but I will certainly add it to my list.
I’m going to have to check this book out.
Speaking from experience, I was barely scraping by for a couple years. I only had a year and a half professional experience under my belt when the “Dot Bomb” went off in our faces. I found myself sharing a 1 bedroom apartment in Brooklyn with 2 other people. I took up work as a bike messenger, since I was “too experienced” for the newly created Receptionist/Web Designer jobs of the time, and “not experienced enough” to work as waitstaff in the city.
I was forced to work as an Independent Contractor. No health insurance, no paid sick days or vacation, no worker‘s comp, no disability, no physical protection whatsoever for one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. And just barely scraping by with 3 people in a 1 bedroom. I understand that my own decisions led to this circumstance, and in some ways it was the time of my life. However, it was a real eye-opener to me. I saw how difficult it is to build your way back out again once you‘re living paycheck to paycheck. Any accident, injury, illness, and you‘re screwed.
Plus, it‘s always more expensive to be poor. I saw examples of this everywhere. For example, you don‘t have the extra money to buy the 24-pack of toilet paper, you have to buy the 4-pack which in the long run is more expensive.
I could go on all day. In fact, I‘m writing a comic book about it, so I‘ll keep you posted there!!
Wow Sally, thanks for sharing. It really is amazing how difficult it is to get by when you don’t have much.
When I was growing up, after my parents divorced, my mom and I were living in an apartiment outside Albany, where she worked as a teacher for a Catholic school. She was only making like $13,000 a year, which, even in the ’80s, was not a whole helluva lot. Needless to say, we made due with what we had. We even slept in the same bed during the winter because we couldn’t afford to heat the whole apartment.
I think the important thing is that we remember situations like these and allow them to inform us and the decisions we make. I try not to lose sight of where I came from and I feel especially compelled to do so because so many people do everything they can to forget. I think that is a mistake. We are who we are because of the experiences in our lives and if we deny those experiences, we deny ourselves and our abilities to help others get through the same thing.