Buy used £2.78

FREE delivery 27 - 30 January. Details

Or fastest delivery Thursday, 25 January. Order within 6 hrs. Details

Select delivery location

Used: Good | Details

Sold by Sell Books ✅

Follow the author

Barbara Ehrenreich

Follow

Nickel and Dimed: Undercover in Low-wage USA Paperback – 18 Jun. 2002

by Barbara Ehrenreich (Author)

4.3 2,897 ratings

See all formats and editions

Millions of Americans work full-time, year-round, for poverty level wages. Distinguished journalist Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them, in order to find out how anyone survives on six to seven dollars an hour. Ehrenreich left home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find and accepted whatever job she was offered, from cleaning to care work, waitressing to folding clothes at Walmart. So began a gruelling, hair-raising and darkly funny odyssey through the underside of working America. In this brilliant, gripping and extraordinarily timely book, Barbara Ehrenreich expertly peels away the layers of self-denial, self-interest and self-protection that insulate the rich from the poor, the served from the servers, the housed from the homeless. This is a book about collective blindness that will change the way you see (Naomi Klein, author of No Logo)

Print length

240 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Granta Books
Publication date

18 Jun. 2002
Dimensions

12.9 x 19.71 x 1.6 cm
ISBN-10

1862075212
ISBN-13

978-1862075214
See all details

Barbara Ehrenreich
24
Paperback
19 offers from £6.67
Barbara Ehrenreich
836
Paperback
20 offers from £3.59
Barbara Ehrenreich
223
Paperback
23 offers from £5.96
Barbara Ehrenreich
38
Paperback
21 offers from £8.40
Barbara Ehrenreich
152
Paperback
26 offers from £0.50
Sally Rooney
106,530
Paperback
101 offers from £1.38

Product description

Amazon Review

Essayist and cultural critic, now author of Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich has always specialised in turning received wisdom on its head with intelligence, clarity and verve.

With some 12 million women being pushed into the labour 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 six to seven USD 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 USD 675 per month. In Maine, where she ends up working as both a cleaner and a nursing home assistant, she must first fill out endless pre-employment tests with trick questions such as, "Some people work better when theyre 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 behaviour 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 people who brought us welfare reform?" No, even in her best-case scenario, with all the advantages of education, health, a car, and money for first months rent, she has to work two jobs, seven days a week and still almost ends up in a shelter.

As Ehrenreich points out with her potent combination of humour and outrage, the laws of supply and demand have been reversed. Rental prices skyrocket, but wages never rise. Rather, jobs are cheap in comparison to 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

Review

'A superb book' -- Decca Aitkenhead, Guardian

'An extraordinary Orwellian testimony to how tough American working life is for the bottom 20 per cent' -- Will Hutton

'An extraordinary achievement...surely one of the most gripping political books ever written' -- Observer

'Brilliant, gripping and extraordinarily timely, this is a book about collective blindness that will change the way you see' -- Naomi Klein

'This book is about the kinds of relationships we have with other human beings...a book that must be read' -- Geoff Dyer, Independent on Sunday

'This is a book about collective blindness that will change the way you see' -- Naomi Klein, author of No Logo

'We have Barbara Ehrenreich to thank for bringing us the news of America's working poor.' -- New York Times Book Review

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Granta Books (18 Jun. 2002)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1862075212
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1862075214
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.9 x 19.71 x 1.6 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 2,570,852 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 831 in Sociology of Work
- 3,043 in Economic Labour
- 6,632 in Economic Conditions (Books)

Customer reviews:
4.3 2,897 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Barbara Ehrenreich

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

BARBARA EHRENREICH is the author of fourteen books, including the bestselling Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch. She lives in Virginia, USA.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5

2,897 global ratings

How customer reviews and ratings work

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from United Kingdom

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Charles

Depressing But Importand Read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 February 2013

Verified Purchase

Both England and America have a phenomena know as the working poor, these are people that work one or more jobs yet still cannot make ends meet.

This book was written by a journalist investigating what's it like to be a low pay worker in America.

The author took various low paying jobs and tried to survive on the wages and had a very tough time.
Jobs such as cleaning turn out to be very demanding physically leaving the workers with permanent damage to their bodys. The cleaning company charged $25 per person hour but only pays the worker $6.65 per hour.

The high cost of housing and low pay means workers cannot just give up their current job and look for another as they will not be able to pay their rent while looking for a job.

Other low pay workers cannot afford health care to fix heath problems, the health problems then cause them to lose their jobs and get even poorer.

Poor public transport in many parts of America means if you cannot afford a car you choice of jobs is limited to your local area only making the choice of work for the poor worse.

It comes obvious that been poor in America actually traps people when vital needs such as health care and transportation are only for people that can afford it. No wonder social mobility in America is so bad and the poor have decreased in wealth in the last 30 years while the rich have gotten even richer.

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Mr. Cwp Keyes

Down but not yet out

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 December 2012

Verified Purchase

This book is full of interesting observations about the underbelly of working America that perhaps we in Britain do not even imagine exists. Novelists like Alison Lurie and Richard Ford have dropped me some literate hints, George Orwell covered similar ground in 'Down and Out in London and Paris' and anyone who has ever worked in catering or been a poor student will go 'uh huh' at some point but 'Nickel and Dimed,' which cost me just one U K penny to buy, really tears the lid off the can marked 'opportunities in the land of opportunity.' China has its problems, privatised higher education for millions with no jobs to go to anyone? Europe seems to have over fattened itself, non-sustainably in some areas and as for everywhere else, well just don't expect America to be any better, unless you have plenty of money of course. I urge you to buy and read this book but for goodness sake don't show it to anyone who works at Wal-Mart, okay?

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Thoughtful account of what it is to be "working poor"

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 June 2015

Verified Purchase

This book is viewed as an undercover expose to most who will read it but is, in fact, just an account of normal life for many, many more who won't even know that the book was ever published.
The author is a writer who decided to live (by working) on minimum wage for a while. She moves state, finds housing, finds a job, settles into a routine then moves on to start again elsewhere.
It's an uncomfortable read with a vague feeling of the author staring at humans from a different species - most readers will never have experienced conditions in which low paid workers live and, whilst it's very difficult to admit to, there is an underlying feeling of looking through the bars into a zoo. As she gets to know her coworkers at each company and the group is humanised the authors approach softens - a major breakthrough being the acknowledgement that we all want to be appreciated regardless of money being earned.
The author appears to be outraged by the conditions suffered by low paid workers and, as this book is intended to stir up some opinions, then this is entirely appropriate but I'm not quite sure that she should be outraged. How does she think people live on $7 an hour? It's not news that life is impossible on these rates of pay but what is the most engaging element of this book is the insight about the individuals she meets during her travels. Many people generalise the "poor" and these book turns the group into people, promoting an urge to thank waitresses more regularly, smile at check out operators and maybe even just notice maids!
I found the authors attitude a little self righteous but have to admire her greatly for going out and finding out what is actually happening rather than just listening to others.
A criticism would be that the book was published in 2001 and has not been updated since. There is little reference to welfare available in the states that she visits and I would have been interested to know what the position was then and is now. I feel more reading coming on!
This book made me think .... a lot.

11 people found this helpful

Helpful

RYAN FIENNES

Picador Modern Classic edition

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 April 2021

Verified Purchase

I purchased the Picador Modern Classic edition; and am very pleased with it.
These editions are compact hardback books - smaller than the average paperback. The print may be too small for some, but I haven't struggled with reading it; and due to the size of these editions, they are easy to carry and read anywhere.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

johnny

Great informative read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 March 2014

Verified Purchase

Even through is about a decade old, the experiences Im sure are no different if repeated today in the USA or UK to a similar degree.
It opens your mind to something you could always see, always knew was there, but somehow failed to grasp, accept and appreciate.
It resonates in the UK with the Zero hour contract that puts all power into the hands of the employer and appears in most cases to be used to keep the workforce subservient (Im sure in limited cases zero hour contracts are great).

Highly recommended read.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Amazon Music Stream millions of songs	AbeBooks Books, art & collectables	ACX Audiobook Publishing Made Easy	Amazon Web Services Scalable Cloud Computing Services

Audible Download Audiobooks	Goodreads Book reviews & recommendations	Amazon Home Services Experienced pros Happiness Guarantee	IMDb Movies, TV & Celebrities

Kindle Direct Publishing Indie Digital & Print Publishing Made Easy	Shopbop Designer Fashion Brands	Amazon Warehouse Deep Discounts Open-Box Products	Amazon Business Service for business customers

	Whole Foods Market We Believe in Real Food

Image Unavailable

Follow the author

Nickel and Dimed: Undercover in Low-wage USA Paperback – 18 Jun. 2002

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Product description

Amazon Review

Review

About the Author

Product details

About the author

Barbara Ehrenreich

Customer reviews

Top reviews from United Kingdom

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.