Although Nickel and Dimed was published 15 years ago, the topic of raising the minimum wage may be more pertinent than ever before. Just last summer, a $15 wage bill that was proposed made it clear that the debate is far from over. Barbara Ehrenreich, a best selling author and previous winner of the National Magazine Award, wrote Nickel and Dimed while undercover at several minimum wage jobs.
The idea for the book was prompted during a lunch with Lewis Lapham, an editor for Harper’s, after Ehrenreich pondered how millions of unskilled workers would survive when the welfare reform of the late 1990s pushed them into the workforce. She posed this question to Lapham with an idea to explore life on six to seven dollars an hour by using the “old-fashioned…show more content… The seemingly inescapable cycle of poverty is written with clarity in a deadpan manner through Ehrenreich’s encounters. For instance, she struggles to find housing because proof of employment is necessary. Conversely, an address is required to get a job. This system forces her to seek out more expensive and unsafe accommodations at timeworn motels where her sleepless nights are spent deprived of any kind of security behind a door that has no bolt. The book humanizes Maslow’s hierarchy of needs by delving deeper into the emotional health of unskilled workers and exploring more than just the numbers.
Physiological well-being and primitve nutrition is jeopardized by meager paychecks that force Ehrenreich to eat fast food and her colleagues to skip meals. Constant physical strain caused by cleaning causes the maids long term injuries and overuse of pain medication. One pregnant maid works through her constant spells of dizziness and nausea until Ehrenreich demands the boss give her the day off to seek medical…show more content… The employees are discouraged from speaking to each other and the reader is able to feel the emotional suffering of a worker ruled by strict rules and monotonous work. She explains it as a “shut-in feeling that there’s no world behind the doors (p190).” Interestingly enough, throughout this experiment Ehrenreich is still living above the poverty line. Although she faces some obstacles, the benefit of an emergency debit card and a car give her a greater advantage than the average impoverished American. She does not ignore her advantages, however stating that her experiences are colored as “a person with every advantage that ethnicity and education, health and motivation can confer attempting, in a time of exuberant prosperity (p10).” The book is a look at the inside of a disenfranchised population of Americans in one of the most prosperous times in America. Whether or not one agrees that the minimum wage should be raised, Ehrenreich’s writing captures an emotional reality of the underbelly of the American economy, a place which has only grown in the years since this book first became a
