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A Critical Analysis of "Nickel and Dimed" In the book Nickel and Dimed the author Barbara Ehrenreich, attempts to go under cover as a minimum wage worker. Her primary reason for going under cover is to see if she can match income to expenses as the truly poor attempt to do everyday. (Ehrenreich 6) Also Ehrenreich makes it extremely clear that her work was not designed to make her experience poverty. (Ehrenreich 6) After completing the assignment, which was given to her by an editor, she had planned to write an article about her experience. Her article was meant to reach the community that was financially well off and give them an idea how minimum wage workers deal with everyday life. Ehrenreich's motives gave her the tools to experience poverty from a statistical standpoint, but kept her from experiencing the problems poor people faced when it really mattered, such as going hungry.
In addition, on her first attempt in Florida, Ehrenreich found out that the assignment entailed getting close with the low wage workers and feeling their hardships. During the very first pages of the book, the reader becomes very aware of Ehrenreich's financial situation. She is a well off worker who has not had a minimum wage job since she was 18 years old. (Ehrenreich 24) That is what makes this book interesting, the fact that the reader is learning of the struggles of the poor just as Ehrenreich had. She portrays each person very well and makes one get to know the people and their different struggles. She does this in addition to finding out if the math works out between minimum wage and housing, bills food etc. Because she goes from the top to the bottom, the first hand experience and flat out shock at some points makes the book very interesting.
Although Ehrenreich's motive was supposed to be straight forward, throughout her very first few days she found out that even though she doesnt necessarily live in poverty like the people she worked with, while undergoing the assignment, did everyday. Barbara learned of their hardships and struggles. She actually began to feel like one of them, waking up with physical pain, hating her bosses and dreading work. The assignment started to teach her of what its like to actually be a minimum wage worker. (Ehrenreich 49) Also she began to realize all the things that she had, but did not need in her old life and also all of the things that she took for granted. Although the undercover work made Ehrenreich feel like a poverty stricken minimum wage worker, it could never have taught her the fear and total unknowing ness of life that those people know. She always had her old life to go back to which included a high paying job, a decent bank account and a home that she could afford.
Although Ehrenreich is not a real minimum wage worker, her work as an undercover journalist makes one feel like she is. Throughout her investigation in Florida she describes the situations she and her co-workers go through in such a descriptive and vivid manner that the reader cannot help but begin to understand how difficult the lives of those workers must be. Barbara Ehrenreich opens the door to a new world that not many upper class Americans know about, but soon will after reading this extremely unique and interesting book. Ehrenreich's book has brought many aspects of what the New York Times calls, the working poor to the center.
She sheds light on a class many of us never really stop to think about and gives us an all access backstage pass to their everyday life. I mean, how many people actually wonder where their waitress lives, or how much the cook at McDonalds can afford to eat? Honestly, before this book I never gave it much thought. To really understand what these people are going through, you have to pay attention. Unfortunately, most of us dont.
Most of us never even give it a thought. You simply find comfort in the thought that they get by somehow dont they? Yes indeed they do, but I wonder if people think of what that somehow is. Its having 2 or 3 jobs, or living in your car, or eating a bag of chips for lunch.
Barbara brings all this to our attention, and is changing the way this nation looks at its working poor. She writes, These experiences are not part of a substantial lifestyle, even a lifestyle of chronic deprivation and relentless low-level punishment. They are, by almost any standard of subsistence, emergency situations. And that is how we should see the poverty of so many millions of low-wage Americans a state of emergency. (Ehrenreich 76) I couldnt believe what Ehrenreich had to go through just to be able to sleep under a roof.
Weve got to understand that these people are desperately needed. They are the backbone of America today, and without them we wouldnt know what to do. Just imagine how many places would burn down if CEOs had to flip their own hamburgers. We see them, but we dont see them. We see them when we need to, but we go blind once our orders been taken. America, these days just doesnt seem to care.
Some look down upon them rather contemptuously. When Barbara inquires as to why so many of their employers (as a maid) seemed openly hostile, her co-workers had this to say: They think were stupid, was Holly's answer. They think we have nothing better to do with our time. Marge too looked suddenly sober.
Were nothing to these people, she said. Were just maids. Nor are we much of anything to anyone else. (Ehrenreich 93) One myth I think we carry with us today is that we think they dont care. What I mean is, you see someone washing dishes or cleaning a hotel room and you wonder if it matters to them whether or not they do a good job.
You think how could anyone care if they made a good burger or not? But it is my belief that everybody has a need to be proud of something. No matter how small it may seem. Even Ehrenreich admits that even though it would be easier if she didnt, she cares. There is a desire in all of us to feel good about something weve done, and a yearning to have someone point it out with praise. I believe Barbara wants us to see that all these myths and assumptions about the working poor need to go right out the window.
She takes us on a journey in their shoes, and at the end of the day I have an all new respect for them. Admittedly, I dont know if I could do what they do. Words Count: 1, 133. Bibliography: 1. Ehrenreich, B. Nickel and Dimed: On (not) Getting by in America.
New York: Harper Collins, 2002.
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