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

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Undercover investigation of American wage inadequacy.

"Nickel and Dimed" offers more than just an eye-opening look into the struggle of low-wage workers; it's a deep dive into the reality of economic survival. Barbara Ehrenreich doesn't just observe, she gets her hands dirty, and her firsthand experiences bring an authenticity that's both enlightening and deeply humanizing. If you want to understand the flip side of American prosperity and the lives of the people who serve your meals, clean your offices, and ring up your purchases, this book is a profoundly compelling start.

  • Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Current Interest (2001)
  • ALA Alex Award (2002)
Note: While we do our best to ensure the accuracy of cover images, ISBNs may at times be reused for different editions of the same title which may hence appear as a different cover.

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

Regular price $3.90
Unit price
per
ISBN: 9780312626686
Publisher: Picador
Date of Publication: 2011-08-02
Format: Paperback
Goodreads rating: 3.65
(rated by 193955 readers)

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Description

In this now classic work, Barbara Ehrenreich, our sharpest and most original social critic, goes "undercover" as an unskilled worker to reveal the dark side of American prosperity. Millions of Americans work full time, year round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job—any job—can be the ticket to a better life. 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 discovered 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 Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate stratagems for survival. Read it for the smoldering
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Undercover investigation of American wage inadequacy.

"Nickel and Dimed" offers more than just an eye-opening look into the struggle of low-wage workers; it's a deep dive into the reality of economic survival. Barbara Ehrenreich doesn't just observe, she gets her hands dirty, and her firsthand experiences bring an authenticity that's both enlightening and deeply humanizing. If you want to understand the flip side of American prosperity and the lives of the people who serve your meals, clean your offices, and ring up your purchases, this book is a profoundly compelling start.

  • Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Current Interest (2001)
  • ALA Alex Award (2002)
Note: While we do our best to ensure the accuracy of cover images, ISBNs may at times be reused for different editions of the same title which may hence appear as a different cover.