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

Very interesting book, it's called Nickel and Dimed.

Have you read "Nickel and Dimed"? It was written and published long before the 2008 financial crash, but is still totally relevant today:

http://www.amazon.com/Nickel-Dimed-Not-Getting-America/dp/0805063897

http://www.amazon.com/Nickel-Dimed-Not-Getting-America/dp/0805063897

And here's what should be required reading

Because you will get fired for slacking off on your job?

Read this book and get inside the head of a low wage worker. Until you've lived this reality you're just criticizing from your ivory tower.

I don't know what to tell you man. If a company employs people at $5 an hour then they are probably on foodstamps, welfare, medicaid, etc. and the rest of society picks up the slack. The business makes increased profit.

Having more minimum wage jobs or a lower minimum wage is NOT going to help anybody really.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0805063897?ie=UTF8&tag=iwillteachyou-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0805063897

Essayist and cultural critic Barbara Ehrenreich has always specialized in turning received wisdom on its head with intelligence, clarity, and verve. With some 12 million women being pushed into the labor market by welfare reform, she decided to do some good old-fashioned journalism and find out just how they were going to survive on the wages of the unskilled--at $6 to $7 an hour, only half of what is considered a living wage. So she did what millions of Americans do, she looked for a job and a place to live, worked that job, and tried to make ends meet.

As a waitress in Florida, where her name is suddenly transposed to "girl," trailer trash becomes a demographic category to aspire to with rent at $675 per month. In Maine, where she ends up working as both a cleaning woman and a nursing home assistant, she must first fill out endless pre-employment tests with trick questions such as "Some people work better when they're a little bit high." In Minnesota, she works at Wal-Mart under the repressive surveillance of men and women whose job it is to monitor her behavior for signs of sloth, theft, drug abuse, or worse. She even gets to experience the humiliation of the urine test.

So, do the poor have survival strategies unknown to the middle class? And did Ehrenreich feel the "bracing psychological effects of getting out of the house, as promised by the wonks who brought us welfare reform?" Nah. Even in her best-case scenario, with all the advantages of education, health, a car, and money for first month's rent, she has to work two jobs, seven days a week, and still almost winds up in a shelter. As Ehrenreich points out with her potent combination of humor and outrage, the laws of supply and demand have been reversed. Rental prices skyrocket, but wages never rise. Rather, jobs are so cheap as measured by the pay that workers are encouraged to take as many as they can. Behind those trademark Wal-Mart vests, it turns out, are the borderline homeless. With her characteristic wry wit and her unabashedly liberal bent, Ehrenreich brings the invisible poor out of hiding and, in the process, the world they inhabit--where civil liberties are often ignored and hard work fails to live up to its reputation as the ticket out of poverty. --Lesley Reed

Worse yet, have you seen Glenn Beck's new book "Broke"? If that isn't the biggest insult to intelligence I'm not sure what is. He profits from people's misery and wants to suggest that what he earned from his book shouldn't be taxes accordingly, so its a double slap for those who cling to his words out of the fear he instills.

Now, as far as your comment on "raising taxes on everyone" I would add one thing. Some people are so down and out, there is nothing left to tax. Should we ask for a section of the cardboard box they live in? I agree that in hard times perhaps everyone across the board should pitch in, but don't forget in terms of discretionary income I would suggest that people at certain levels may pay more just to tread water which is the subject of "Nickeled and Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich. Now some people can argue with her methodology, but how about Elizabeth Warren? She can cite how the inequality across the spectrum grew.

I would rather take a page out of Warren Buffet's book that suggests that people of his level should pay at least the same percentage as their secretaries. I don't think he is making that up. And I think those who are well enough off are whistling past the graveyard knowing that he's right, and hoping no critical mass will ever put 2+2 together to swing the tide. (Edit: typo)

Two sources of the outrage, the first is the emotional outrage people see when watching people in dirt poor areas slaving away to make a luxury good for someone in another country. That just solicits outrage from many people.

The second source is from people who see large companies use their resources to keep poor people perpetually poor for personal gain.

You are right the people have a choice to either work or not to work, but if not working means death for you and your family it is not really a choice. Many factory workers are not just working for themselves, but for their family as a whole.

I would suggest a couple of books that go into the issues you are asking about pretty thoroughly.

Nickel and Dimed:

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

Also the first episode of 30 days

The 30 days episode shows how being poor can cause people to continuously be ground down to a point where even the smart and responsible ones find themselves unable to cope.

Nickel and Dimed

If there was justice in the world he and his wife and kids would all have to work for a few years at in-and-out burger and try to live off the income and then during their off time listen to a recording of him being a jackass and saying that if people worked harder they'd be richer.

http://www.amazon.com/Nickel-Dimed-Not-Getting-America/dp/0805063897

>real job that adds value to a product

Where have you been? All the manufacturing jobs have been moved to China now. And it's impossible to get by on a Wal Mart job. Really a presumptuous and ignorant statement you made there.

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich.
Here

I'll email you a free ebook version if you'll agree to bask the irony with me.

You can start here.

You should check out Nickel and Dimed. The author is college educated, but pretends she has no education or employment background and tries to find employment/survive.

You'd enjoy reading this Nickel and Dimed

I just finished reading Nickel and Dimed. I feel for a normal retail worker and hate the sam walton and his shitty morals. Hope you get out of your situation soon. Good luck.

might i suggest reading Nickel and Dimed? assuming you live in the US (or not), this is (still) a very interesting sociological take on whether or not it is possible to live on minimum wage.

*Nickel and Dimed"

I read this book a few months back. The author is criticized for his little experiment, but his personal experience aside, he does point out how the experiences of people he met as an "undercover poor person" differed—and they differed, largely, based on the choices the individuals made. So, it would seem like there are some working poor who do adapt, and manage to better their situation. What they do isn't magic; what they do is defer gratification.

What you describe is basically the point of Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed. I've read a good portion of that book. The people in it are sympathetic, but many of them make bad choices as well.