Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

I had this in drafts forever and forgot about my effort to process stuff here so here's what I had and I'm gonna try to remember this thing is here but no freakin' promises!



I'd had this book on my list for a while and ran into a used copy in a Brooklyn free pile in front of someone's apartment building. What I thought the book was: a years-long study of a financially stable writer going "underground" to live on low-wage jobs. And it was. But just not the way I thought.

What was different?
- She goes incognito in three different geographic locations
- It's only a month each
- She starts out with the amount of money she thinks she can earn (so she can find an apartment within her budget)

For some reason I thought she would be living and dying by what she could make in the retail/service industries for a year or more with no safety net. That was not really the case, though it sounds like she lived in some fairly sketchy locations and ate a cheap diet and I am certainly not diminishing those efforts. But this was hardly living as a low wage earner since the impact of being financially insecure compounds over time, over years.

Still - there were parts I found informative or enjoyed:

- Writing style. I did like her writing style. After having read some poorly written non-fiction books like What Matters Most (Chanel Reynolds), Unorthodox (Deborah Feldman), it was a welcome change to have a decent writer relaying the experience.

- She is aware of and acknowledges her privilege.

- Housing. Coming off of reading Evicted (Matthew Desmond), my thoughts about low-income living focused on apartments, shelters and trailer parks. Hotels and motels didn't pop up much. But this is one of the options for coworkers (and Ehrenreich) in this book. The concept of living in a a place that didn't have a kitchen complicated the food budget. And washing machines. I complain constantly because we don't have a washer/dryer in our Brooklyn apartment (we do have it for limited hours in a building's basement), but I don't have to wear a specific uniform to work that needs to be laundered constantly.

- Food aid. At one point in the book, Ehrenreich needs to reach out for aid. I work in an industry that has some overlap with communities who need to access assistance -- food pantries, medical support, etc. It was not a surprise to me that she couldn't find an agency to help her expediently. That she spent a long while on the phone and managed to get food supply support...eventually. And it was limited in supply and it was a one time deal. It's not surprising to hear this but it's always frustrating to hear it -- that when people need help and are trying to put all the pieces together, almost every avenue they turn to for assistance creates a significant workload and time sink.

- Work environment - oh, the management. Her detailing of how workers were managed, overseen, required to act, etc all brought me back to my retail jobs at large chains. Every minute and action was accounted for and there was a code of conduct that did not take into account that you might be an actual human being.


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