Nickel and Dimed: On Getting By in America
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- ISBN13: 9780805088380
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
The bestselling, landmark work of undercover reportage, now updated
Acclaimed as an instant classic upon publication, Nickel and Dimed has sold more than 1.5 million copies and become a staple of classroom reading. Chosen for “one book” initiatives across the country, it has fueled nationwide campaigns for a living wage. Amusing, poignant, and passionate, this revelatory firsthand account of life in low-wage America—the tale of Barbara Ehrenreich’s attempts to eke out a living while effective as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing-home aide, and Wal-Mart associate—has become an essential part of the nation’s political discourse.
Now, in a new afterword, Ehrenreich shows that the plight of the underpaid has in no way eased: with fewer jobs available, deteriorating work conditions, and no pay increase in sight, Nickel and Dimed is more significant than ever.
Barbara Ehrenreich is the leader of fourteen books, including Dancing in the Streets and The New York Times bestsellers Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch. A frequent contributor to Harper’s and The Nation, she has also been a columnist at The New York Times and Time magazine.
Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize
Millions of Americans work full-time, year-round, for poverty-level wages. Inspired in part by the speechifying surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job—any job—can be the ticket to a better life, Barbara Ehrenreich chose to join them. 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 learned 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 Huge Boxes, quick food, and a thousand desperate strategems for survival. Read it for the clarity of Ehrenreich’s perspective and for a rare view of how “prosperity” looks from the bottom.
Millions of Americans work full-time, year-round, for poverty-level wages. Inspired in part by the speechifying surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job—any job—can be the ticket to a better life, Barbara Ehrenreich chose to join them. 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 learned 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 Huge Boxes, quick food, and a thousand desperate strategems for survival. Read it for the clarity of Ehrenreich’s perspective and for a rare view of how “prosperity” looks from the bottom.
“A valuable and illuminating book . . . We have Barbara Ehrenreich to thank for bringing us the news of America’s effective poor so clearly and directly, and conveying with it a deep moral outrage . . . She is our head of state reporter of the underneath of capitalism.”—Dorothy Gallagher, The New York Times Book Review
“A valuable and illuminating book . . . We have Barbara Ehrenreich to thank for bringing us the news of America’s effective poor so clearly and directly, and conveying with it a deep moral outrage . . . She is our head of state reporter of the underneath of capitalism.”—Dorothy Gallagher, The New York Times Book Review
“Nickel and Dimed is a superb and frightening look into the lives of hard-effective Americans . . . policymakers should be forced to read the last ten pages of Ehrenreich’s book in which she concludes that affordable rent, food and health care should be among the chief measurements of a healthy economy, not simply high productivity and employment.”—Tamara Straus, San Francisco Chronicle
“This book is painstakingly enjoyable, written with an affable, up-your-nose brio throughout. Ehrenreich is a superb and relaxed artist, and she has a tremendous sense of rueful humor, especially when it comes to the evils of middle-management, absentee ownership and all the small self-consecrating bourgeois touches gracing the homes she sterilizes, inch-by-square-inch, as a maid in Maine.”—Stephen Metcalf, Los Angeles Times
“With grace and wit, Ehrenreich discovers the irony of being ‘nickel and dimed’ during unprecedented prosperity . . . Living wages, she elegantly shows, might erase the bring shame on that comes from our dependence ‘on the underpaid labor of others.”—Eileen Boris, The Boston Globe
“A captivating account . . . Just promise that you will read this explosive small book take in to take in and pass it on to all your friends and relatives.”—Diana Henriques, The New York Times
“There is much to be learned from Nickel and Dimed. It opens a window into the daily lives of the invisible workforce that fuels the service economy, and endows the men and women who populate it with the honor that is regularly missing on the job . . . In the grand tradition of the muckraking journalist, [Ehrenreich] goes undercover for nearly a year . . . What emerges is an insider’s view of the worst jobs (additional than agricultural labor) the ‘new economy’ has to offer.”—Katherine Newman, The Washington Post Book World
“Ehrenreich is a wonderful writer. Her descriptions of people and places stay with you. If nothing else, this book illuminates the invisible army that scrubs floors, waits tables and straightens the racks at discount stores. That alone makes Ehrenreich’s odyssey worthwhile.”—Sandy Block, USA Today
“Nickel and Dimed is an ‘ancient-fashioned,’ in-your-face exposé . . . this vital volume will force anyone who reads it to acknowledge the regularly desperate plight of Ehrenreich’s subjects.”—Anne Colamosca, Business Week
“Jarring, full of riveting grit . . . This book is already unforgettable.”—Susannah Meadows, Newsweek
“I commend Barbara Ehrenreich for conducting such an vital conduct experiment. Millions of Americans suffer daily trying to make ends meet. Ehrenreich’s book forces people to acknowledge the average worker’s struggle and promises to be extremely influential.”—Lynn Woolsey, U.S. Congress, Representing California’s Sixth District
“A brilliant on-the-job report from the dark side of the boom. No one since H.L. Mencken has assailed the smug speechifying of prosperity with such penknife-like precision and ferocious wit.”—Mike Davis, leader of Ecology of Dread
“With this book Barbara Ehrenreich takes her place among such giants of investigative television journalism as George Orwell and Jack London. Ehrenreich’s courage, empathy, and the immediacy with which she describes her experience bring us face to face with the fate of millions of American workers today.”—Frances Fox Piven, leader of Regulating the Poor
“I was absolutely knocked out by Barbara Ehrenreich’s remarkable odyssey as a waitress, hotel maid, cleaning woman, nursing home aide and sales clerk. She has accomplished what no contemporary writer has even attempted—to be that ‘nobody’ who barely subsists on her essential labors. It is a stiff punch in the nose to persons righteous apostles of ‘welfare reform.’ Not only is it must reading but it’s mesmeric. You can’t place the damn thing down. Bravo!”—Studs Terkel, leader of Effective
“One of the fantastic American social critics, Barbara Ehrenreich has written an unforgettable memoir of what it was like to work in some of America’s least attractive jobs. Nickel and Dimed is a passionate meditation on the blindness of persons with money and power. It is one of persons rare books that wi
“Nickel and Dimed is a superb and frightening look into the lives of hard-effective Americans . . . policymakers should be forced to read the last ten pages of Ehrenreich’s book in which she concludes that affordable rent, food and health care should be among the chief measurements of a healthy economy, not simply high productivity and employment.”—Tamara Straus, San Francisco Chronicle
“This book is painstakingly enjoyable, written with an affable, up-your-nose brio throughout. Ehrenreich is a superb and relaxed artist, and she has a tremendous sense of rueful humor, especially when it comes to the evils of middle-management, absentee ownership and all the small self-consecrating bourgeois touches gracing the homes she sterilizes, inch-by-square-inch, as a maid in Maine.”—Stephen Metcalf, Los Angeles Times
“With grace and wit, Ehrenreich discovers the irony of being ‘nickel and dimed’ during unprecedented prosperity . . . Living wages, she elegantly shows, might erase the bring shame on that comes from our dependence ‘on the underpaid labor of others.”—Eileen Boris, The Boston Globe
“A captivating account . . . Just promise that you will read this explosive small book take in to take in and pass it on to all your friends and relatives.”—Diana Henriques, The New York Times
“There is much to be learned from Nickel and Dimed. It opens a window into the daily lives of the invisible workforce that fuels the service economy, and endows the men and women who populate it with the honor that is regularly missing on the job . . . In the grand tradition of the muckraking journalist, [Ehrenreich] goes undercover for nearly a year . . . What emerges is an insider’s view of the worst jobs (additional than agricultural labor) the ‘new economy’ has to offer.”—Katherine Newman, The Washington Post Book World
“Ehrenreich is a wonderful writer. Her descriptions of people and places stay with you. If nothing else, this book illuminates the invisible army that scrubs floors, waits tables and straightens the racks at discount stores. That alone makes Ehrenreich’s odyssey worthwhile.”—Sandy Block, USA Today
“Nickel and Dimed is an ‘ancient-fashioned,’ in-your-face exposé . . . this vital volume will force anyone who reads it to acknowledge the regularly desperate plight of Ehrenreich’s subjects.”—Anne Colamosca, Business Week
“Jarring, full of riveting grit . . . This book is already unforgettable.”—Susannah Meadows, Newsweek
“I commend Barbara Ehrenreich for conducting such an vital conduct experiment. Millions of Americans suffer daily trying to make ends meet. Ehrenreich’s book forces people to acknowledge the average worker’s struggle and promises to be extremely influential.”—Lynn Woolsey, U.S. Congress, Representing California’s Sixth District
“A brilliant on-the-job report from the dark side of the boom. No one since H.L. Mencken has assailed the smug speechifying of prosperity with such penknife-like precision and ferocious wit.”—Mike Davis, leader of Ecology of Dread
“With this book Barbara Ehrenreich takes her place among such giants of investigative television journalism as George Orwell and Jack London. Ehrenreich’s courage, empathy, and the immediacy with which she describes her experience bring us face to face with the fate of millions of American workers today.”—Frances Fox Piven, leader of Regulating the Poor
“I was absolutely knocked out by Barbara Ehrenreich’s remarkable odyssey as a waitress, hotel maid, cleaning woman, nursing home aide and sales clerk. She has accomplished what no contemporary writer has even attempted—to be that ‘nobody’ who barely subsists on her essential labors. It is a stiff punch in the nose to persons righteous apostles of ‘welfare reform.’ Not only is it must reading but it’s mesmeric. You can’t place the damn thing down. Bravo!”—Studs Terkel, leader of Effective
“One of the fantastic American social critics, Barbara Ehrenreich has written an unforgettable memoir of what it was like to work in some of America’s least attractive jobs. Nickel and Dimed is a passionate meditation on the blindness of persons with money and power. It is one of persons rare books that wi
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One thing was predictable in the book and that was Barbara’s amazement that the Maid Service owner was charging householders $25 an hour per maid while the maids themselves only made $6.50. The owner was therefore obviously an evil user of people. How about the franchise fees, insurance, overhead, facility, vehicles, training costs etc etc etc? Any owner of a franchise realizes that training material, signs, forms, etc. don’t come free and that a significant part of profits are returned to headquarters. Frankly this book is a fluff piece .Barbara sort of reminds me of Marie Antoinette who frolics in a house on her estate property pretending to be a peasant. At any time she can return to her palatial lifestyle.
Additional commenters have mentioned that Barbara never discusses in any depth the reason that her fellow toilers are maids, Walmart employees, or waitresses. Perhaps they dropped out of school and have no marketable skills. No effort has been made in the book to suggest ways in which the “system” could be fixed.
Anyone who smokes MJ while interviewing for jobs that require a blood test doesn’t exhibit the common sense expected of an educated person. Just another thought.
Liberals, Socialists, and supporters of victims will like this book. Barbara should enter politics. She will go far in the environment embraced by 2009 Washington.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
This pretentious woman should have not bothered. Her tale could have been worth reading. I am referring to the basis only. She is so far out of touch and is clueless. DO NOT WASTE A DIME ON THIS BOOK!!!
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
The seller blamed it on the slow mail, but the book didn’t show up until after the estimated date.
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
This book tells the reality for too many Americans, who don’t qualify for the Bush/McCain tax cuts. Sad, and scary, reading.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
Just see John Stossel’s interview with Adam Guide in 20/20’s “Bailouts & Bull****.” His own book, called “Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25 and the Search for the American Dream” seems to expose Ehrenreich for the negative hack she rumor has it that is.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5