This is the second from my
book list that I've finished this year. (This was from the category "Popular Nonfiction.")
In
Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich recounts a three-month experiment, an attempt at "old-fashioned" investigative journalism. The experiment is intended to test whether low-wage jobs are adequate for the basic necessities of human life: she goes to three different cities for a month, taking on the best low-wage job she can find, and attempts to make income match outgo.
Despite her rhetoric of embarking on this venture "as a scientist," her hopes to find the "hidden economies" known only to the poor, Ehrenreich knows, as does her reader, exactly what she will find before she even sets out. All low-wage earners are hard-working, honest, decent people, all managerial types and owners are oppressive, slimey, greedy creatures, and it was impossible to make input keep up with output while trapped in this system. One almost wishes that she would have dispensed with the econo-tourism and just written what she intended to write before she set out.
It's when she is
not writing about her experiences as "one of the working poor" that her writing is strongest and most interesting. From time to time, she'll break off from her narrative and insert legal, historical, or economic information and commentary--the year in which the right to a bathroom break was legally mandated, the percentage of maid-service start-ups that fail, a comparison of the increase in wages vs. housing in her (temporary) area. These were helpful, engaging, and as shocking and depressing as she hoped.
And the premise that her little dip into life as "the working poor" was intended to demonstrate must certainly be true--it is not possible to feed one's family (barely possible to feed oneself) strictly on the income of a low-wage job.
But I was constantly wishing for a "real" treatment of the issue. One of these years, my book list is going to have to focus on economics and poverty, because Ehrenreich's work is just not helpful in understanding the issue. It's an exercise in self-justification in every sense: yes, the world is as I know it must be, and yes, I'm a decent person. (I once had an African-American colleague who confessed how tired she was of being the object by which people proved they were "decent folk." She said something to the effect of: "I wanted to wear a sign that said 'Fine. You're not racist. Now go away and leave me alone.'") As an example of
simultaneous econo-voyeurism and navel-gazing, her work is fine (I suppose), but as an explanation of the lives of the working poor, it fell drastically short. At what rate do people in low wage jobs leave them for something better, and at what rate do they leave them for something worse? What are the mechanisms by which reasonably healthy adults gain access to jobs with livable wages?
As an implicit proposal to the solution of the problem of poverty, I also felt its inadequacy. Do wage supports, housing assistance, and government child care really constitute a sustainable approach to poverty? Should there be any limits to governmental assistance? Is it appropriate for a nation to expect that
every job in its economy should be able to support a family, or are there some jobs that
shouldn't pay a living wage (and therefore shouldn't be permanently occupied by someone trying to feed her family)?
In any case, if Ehrenreich's hope was that her book would inspire her readers to want to learn more on the topic, she certainly succeeded with me. If her goal was to convince someone who didn't already agree with her, well . . . that's not the most important thing, right?
What are you reading?
Theo's reading his favorite: "I Love You"
It has a stirring text: "I love Mommy. Mommy loves me. I love Daddy. Daddy loves me. I love you. You love me."
He loves the plot twists, and the character development.
Comments (5)
You write an interesting review. I haven't read that book, although its premise interests me. Her experiment also falls short in that even though she was living on low wages, she had the psychological boost to know that it was temporary and that soon she'd be writing a lucrative book about the experience.
I'm reading Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake and the last volume of Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson, Master of the Senate.
Good review! She obviously has an agenda and assumes the reader is oblivious to it. Typical. I've debated on reading this book, but I think I will have to decline after reading your review. Seems like a waste of good reading.
I read her other book "Bait and Switch." In that one, she is a middle-aged woman searching for a white-collar job. Her "research" was strange--she went to numerous clinics and conferences on how to get a job and how to find the right job based on your personality. She also used a personal/career coach that cost a LOT of money. The entire process struck me as wasteful and misguided. Her assumption was that everyone does it this way. I don't think so. Unless you want to waste an exorbitant amount of time and money. And like ^Daylily02 says, she knows this is a temporary gig, so her perspective is skewed.
I'm starting an adult Sunday school class on the Gospel of Mark, so I'm reading books associated with that. I have been struggling through Colbert's "I Am America! (And So Can You!)." My reasoning was to get a pulse on what people are reading. I got it from the library, thankfully. Don't waste your money or time. Ick.
I read Nickel & Dimed and actually went to hear Ehrenreich speak when the book first came out. I thought it was a good read, but I was shocked that so many other people were shocked - Wow, poverty sucks! Thanks, Barb, for finally opening our eyes! I mean, it was very uncomfortable for me, having grown up in a working poor family, to watch middle-class (university) people falling over themselves and patting themselves on the back for finally being awakened to the plight of the poor.
I wish I could give you a reading list on American poverty & economics, but it would consist of books about 15-20 years old now (because I read them in a grad course on poverty & welfare and at *that* time they were probably 5-10 years old!). There is some interesting work on LBJ's "War on Poverty" in the 1960s and 70s, and then the conservative backlash against government assistance (with liberals eventually joining in, i.e. Clintonian welfare reform) and its effect on the poor and working poor. My former professor, Gwendolyn Mink, wrote a great little book called "Welfare's End" which traces some of this, focusing on the widespread support for welfare reform in the 1990s as a reflection of our society's negative view of poor women and mothers in general. It's called "Welfare's End" and in it she proposes the controversial (but not historically new) solution that motherhood is a "job" that should be compensated by the government.
oh, p.s. what I MEANT to say about Ehrenreich is that I also thought the book fell flat in the end, offering no real discussion of policy issues or no real solutions other than... I don't know, be nice to your maid and tip the restaurant servers a little better?? Really.
Okay. I was all set to post below about how babies as a rule are nice, even fun, but not something that makes me all mooshy, and then I remembered the picture above of Theo, looking like his necks needs nibbling. So never mind.