book review: nickel and dimed

"When someone works for less pay than she can live on - when, for example, she goes hungry so that you can eat more cheaply and conveniently - then she has made a great sacrifice for you, she has made you a gift of some part of her abilities, her health, and her life. The "working poor," as they are appropriately termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society. The neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high. To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor, to everyone else."

Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed

I've heard about this book ever since it came out but never had the chance to read it. Nickel and Dimed is a pseudo-investigative report and sociological study of the working poor. In it, Ehrenrich, who in "real life" is a writer for magazines like Harper's, immerses herself as much as she could into three working class communities: in Florida, Maine, and Minnesota, where she worked as a waitress, house-cleaner, nursing home attendant, and Walmart salesperson. She describes the process of looking for the cheapest housing (within reasonable constraints, such as safety), jobs, the interviews, and the work experience.

She reveals the stunning reality that many people in the upper class (and perhaps even the middle) may not have known - that even as a healthy, single woman without any dependents, it was often times near impossible to survive. Moreover, that often times, these working class jobs require that the people sacrifice their own health, state of mind, families, dignities just so the rich could live in a little comfort.

This might not be "news" to many, but I think people don't realize the difficulty that many working class people have to go through. The fact that the poor aren't dying in mass numbers might make people think that they're doing okay, or that they're surviving somehow. Sure, they're surviving, but they're also going through a great deal of suffering that is easily discounted. Just as Fast Food Nation had shown, many of these sufferings are invisible. These aren't only the backaches, sores and bruises that these jobs entail, but the human indiginities, the lost of individual freedom and voice.

Ehrenreich also shows that there are many ways corporations can hold down their workers, such as forbidding them to talk to one another, or share salary information, and hanging over the constant threat of humiliation through random drug tests. Sometimes the naive notion that they can just "get a new job" is impossible when you have to take care of your children or a dependent.

And I'm sure, there are many things that Ehrenreich didn't encounter, things that are far worse. At least the people she ran into were legal workers, many of which were Caucasians. The world of the illegal immigrants or minorities are possibly even darker, and more painful to consider.

In the end, she asks us not to feel guilt, but shame. And as part of the elite who has be privileged to be served, I do feel utter shame at the reality that the working poor have to suffer through. I only pray that I can help correct the problems, or at the very least, not add to it.