Nickel and Dimed on (Not) Getting by in America

Nickel & Dimed

On (Not) Getting by in America

The book Nickel and Dimed On (Not) Getting by in America, written by Barbara Ehrenreich is a book that relates the experience of how she survived living on poverty-level wages in America as a waitress, maid and a Wal-mart sales associate. Barbara left her comfortable surroundings as a journalist with a Ph.D in biology to work various "unskilled" and "under compensated" jobs in order to achieve, "the old-fashioned kind of journalism". In regards to leaving her comfortable lifestyles for a few months traveling through Florida to Maine and Minnesota, she discovered that people who are paid six to seven dollars an hour did not generate enough income for those who did not want to live outside of a home. The sad reality is that millions of people in America work everyday for those wages and have to just deal with it. The majority opinion is that some poor people are lazy or choose to be that way, when the truth is that individuals work everyday some even two jobs and still cannot make ends meet because of the poverty cycle.

The cycle of poverty is a term well undefined but considerably understandable when talking is excess about individuals who formulate only enough income to provide basic clothing, food, and shelter. The cycle itself targets those of the same background such as a family or a particular community. In addition, the poverty aspect comes from those individuals who happen to be uneducated by means of further education and or unskilled in a particular trade leaving them in a position of working jobs that pay inadequately but require demanding hours and stress of labor. In order to exemplify, chapter one in the book dealt with the fact that Barbara's severely low pay...

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...d the fact that every time she moved into a different state, she found work and a decent place to stay with money in hand. It was not her intention to help those who are of the working class. She did not suffer any great damages. And at no point in time did she go without bare necessities such as the individuals that lead the life she lived for a few months.

The book overall was not exciting and did not generate me to feel any thoughtful emotions for what she experienced traveling from Florida to Maine and Minnesota. Even though this book is the New York Times bestseller and a Notable Book of the year, it remains to be ineffective and meaningless to the millions of Americans that are poor but working everyday.

"The paperback is very interesting but I find it will never replace the hardcover book -- it

Makes a very poor doorstop."

-Alfred Hitchcock-