Summary Review
Barbara Ehrenreich has written many books, but her book ‘Nickel and Dimmed’ is a classic in providing knowledge about a socio-economic issue of how does a poor, low-wage worker is able to survive in such a meager income. In this book, she begins to investigate that what are the hidden costs attached to the survival of a low wage worker and how do they cope up with those. To know more about it, she decided to spend some time of her life that were approximately three months, doing various lower wage jobs that included house cleaning, nursing, being a waitress and a sales girl serving at Wal-Mart.
For this purpose she did different jobs at different places that included Serving in Florida, Scrubbing in Maine and Selling in Minnesota. During her stays, she encountered different situations, all highlighting various circumstances in which these people operate. Barbara selected to go to Florida, first, as it was near to her hometown but she wanted to try some place where people are not familiar of her so that she doesn’t have any problem in doing her work. In Florida, she became a waitress in a hotel. There she used to clean, wipe, consolidate catsup bottles and recheck the cheesecake supply and tour the tables to make sure the customer evaluation forms are filled up by the customers. At that place she experienced how tough their work is. The manager sits down and keeps an eye on everyone ad makes sure that nobody sits down and remains idle. Due to which it becomes very hectic and each of the employee try to drag their work in order to prevent them from getting another load of work (Ehrenreich, 2011).
Then her next visit was to Maine, where she served her maid services for a nursing home. During this time, she realized what the odds of this profession are. There she was showed a video tape in which four things were taught, including dusting, bathrooms, kitchen, and vacuuming. She learned new techniques for these works through videos which was a lot different from what she has been practicing before. The next trip was to Minnesota. There she applied at Wal-Mart and then went through the lengthy process of hiring and testing. Even after the she got hired, she got to realize how challenging this job is. She identified the difference between how easy and low skilled jobs they look like and the difference between what they actually are (Ehrenreich, 2011).
During all of her visits, there were some common factors that she needed to decide upon. There were also some problems that these low wage worker confronted with while making their decisions about accommodations, applying for jobs, nutrition . One of the factors was the basic need of finding accommodation. At each of the places, let it be Florida, Maine or Minnesota, the factors for selecting an accommodation were bit different depending upon the prices and other situational factors. In this book, she realized that mostly accommodation comprises 30% of one’s basic salary; however in reality these 59% of people pay around 50% or more of their salary for renting a house or any lodge. As accommodation used to cost so high, there were many employees who due to lower wages opted to have their housing in trailer parks or cheap dilapidated motels. Due to so much high prices of accommodations, many workers also have to spend their times even in their vehicles to save money and few opted to stay with their relatives. There are so many other costs associated with renting a house such as arranging security deposit and other fees that, in such a situation, a low wage worker finds it easier for to rent a room in a hotel but that eventually costs employees even more. Apart from these hard situations, the place that you get for the quoted price does not provide you with a house with facilities. Such as some homes did not have any kitchen, some had no private bathrooms or living in a room with one window and no screen in summer. In addition to this, sometimes these people had to confront neighbors who always gave some weird looks and had scary faces (Ehrenreich, 2011).
Another factor was of applying for employment. She found out an interesting fact that these low-skilled jobs are advertised more than the in what number they actually exist. These jobs are advertised more by the employers to keep job list for back up workers so that they can be called at the time of need. Besides this, another trend that the employers have started is to conduct a drug test of employees before hiring. This process indulges employees in some doubts and suspects about them and about employer’s trust.
Even after getting job, these low skilled jobs are very boring, as they do not require much mind work and are repetitive in nature which takes on workers’ mental vitality and alertness. This nature of these jobs makes a person to assume as if he is a programmed robot. The working conditions can get even worse when you are a low wage worker, you can have sudden change in your work schedule, and a promised 15 minutes lunch can be reduced to a 5 minutes break any time. There is a constant supervision going on your actions at work. Purses and overcoats of workers are regularly checked. Employees are expected to work even if they are ill or injured (Ehrenreich, 2011).
After the working conditions, when there comes a times to get payment for all the work one did. Then many times workers had to face situations when their wages are delayed or with held by the employers. Then these workers are not offered with benefits as other skilled workers are. Many times, these workers are compelled to work overtime without getting paid for the extra hours (Ehrenreich, 2011).
Out of all the above situation, it can be said that low wage workers do a lot of hard work, face much more difficult situations and are paid much less than what they actually deserve. These people are called as ‘Actual Philanthropists’ by the author, as these workers ignore their own children for the safety and security of other’s children, they live in their sub standard houses, to make other’s houses look shiny and perfect. They are anonymous donor and thus must be respected. But there will come a time when these workers will claim for just treatment for themselves as they deserve and that day everyone will be better-off.
Work Cited
Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. Picador, 2011.
