So many people say that if people only worked harder, they would be able to afford nice homes, adequate diets, decent schools for their children, and appropriate medical care. In 1999, author Barbara Ehrenreich, who had a PhD in biology, set out to see how true that was.
She traveled to three different cities–Key West, Florida, Portland, Maine, and Minneapolis, Minnesota–and planned to spend a month in each one. Her advance research said she would be able to find low paying jobs and affordable housing at each location and planned her budget with that in mind. She took a minimal amount of very basic clothing, rented cheap lodging and(with a credit card) cheap cars, and a little money to spend for deposits on housing and emergencies.
She found that life was a lot tougher than she anticipated. In most locations, it was almost impossible to find any housing in her price range (that being her salary) and what was available was extremely inadequate: poor maintenance, lack of a refrigerator or stove, etc., and even those sites were difficult to find. Often she ended up in a run-down motel or hotel that cost more than half of her salary. She also found she had to work two jobs just to afford that.
In Key West, she worked as a waitress and a hotel maid. The hours were long and their regulations stifling, In the restaurants, they were not allowed to talk to other servers or spend much time with their customers because it took them away from their other duties: setting tables, preparing dishes, cleaning up, etc. They were also unable to sit down while on duty and their breaks were few and short. They split their tips with the busboys and dishwashers. In both situations, patrons tended to ignore them unless they wanted something and then tended to look down on them.
In Maine, she worked as a member of a national housecleaning crew company and in the dining room at a nursing home for Alzheimer’s patients and being able to eat leftover food in the second. Salaries in both cases were very low and, in the second, the unit was understaffed so she had to do more work to meet the needs of the residents without extra compensation Two benefits were doughnuts and coffee before going to work in the first situation (the company took in more than the workers received).
In Minnesota, one of her jobs was at Wal-mart. After an intensive orientation, she found that she was placed in departments about which she had little knowledge. After having to work overtime without being reimbursed (the time sheets were altered to remove the hours), she tried to get the employees to unionize.
The conditions under which Ehrenriech lived were terrible but she had advantages many lf her co-workers at each location lacked: She did not have anyone else, e.g., child, ill partner or parent, depending on her income and presence and was in good physical condition.
NICKLE AND DIMED is an excellent portrait of what life is really like for low-income people trying to make it in our society. Hopefully, readers will be more conscious of what they are trying to do and appreciate how much they are accomplishing without as much support, financially and socially, as they deserve. ( )

read in New Yorker then bought book and finished on Thompson Hill

A writer goes on a mission to walk in the shoes of the working poverty level wage-earnings. The idea sounds awesome but ultimately falls short.

Mostly, the book just seems detached. More like a grad student documenting the mating habits of the fruit fly. Ho-hum. And except for Barbara, most everyone just blended together into some kind of sob story indistinguishable from each other.

The idea is so grand that I would like to see someone else take a stab it.

There are too many holes. Aren't most jobs difficult the first few weeks? Every job must have some kind of learning curve. If nothing else learning new acronyms, finding the bathroom, or just figuring out who the alpha dog is in this new social structure. Then adding in moving and finding one's way around a new town on top of this.

I wanted to like this book. I wanted to cheer Barbara on and develop an appreciation for the working poverty-level wage earning class. But I'm more glad I'm done with the book and can move on to other things. ( )

An intimate analysis of the working poor told from the point-of-view of an undercover journalist who attempted to live and work for minimum wages in three locations in the United States for three months with minimal assistance. A must read for anyone who has either worked for minimum wage or who has employed someone who does. ( )

Maybe 3 1/2 stars. It was copyrighted in 2001 and I'm reading it in 2020 so most of the information and statistics are over 20 years old. My fault - for waiting so long to read it, but it's distracting and annoying. Ehrenreich's tone is also condescending and her "experiment" has too many loopholes to be very scientific. There are some amusing anecdotes and occasional a-ha moments but you can get a better, more current story by reading [b:Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive|39218350|Maid Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive|Stephanie Land|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1573822660l/39218350._SY75_.jpg|60800466] . And, unfortunately, you know from the beginning what Ehrenreich is going to find right? Good people laboring under extremely low wages and high housing costs. Even the last chapter, "Evaluation" is mostly just complaining about how badly off the poor are. Certainly they are badly off, but I guess I was hoping for a bit more .... evaluation .... of Ehrenreich's own personal experiment. ( )