When The Rich Become Poor - "Nickel and Dimed"

Several years ago, as part of a Business ethics class I was teaching, our students were required to read a book called "Nickel and Dimed." The book is a quick read (less than 200 pages) and tells the story of Barbara Ehrenreich, an upper-middle class, country club attending type of writer from the outskirts of New York City -- Westport, Connecticut if my memory serves correctly.

Ehrenreich decided that she wanted to experience life as a member of the working poor. Her objective was to feel on a firsthand basis the daily frustrations involved with working a minimum wage type job. even after four years, I still think about this book, and am apparently not alone - it was a New York Times bestseller soon after its publication.

Why did this book touch a nerve? Let me try and count three ways.

After reading Barbara Ehrenreich’s book “Nickel and Dimed,” I believe that there are three good reasons for its success, and understand why it is an effective story and one which became a national best seller.

First, she emphasizes the points she wishes to make by diversifying her experiences. Rather than working one low paying job, she moves from one part of the United States to another, taking on different jobs at different companies. This gave her real world experience as a working poor person, but allowed her to view the picture from different angles. She was poor in Maine and poor in Minnesota. This allowed her to meet more people and gain the knowledge of many rather than a few. This gives her a greater depth of knowledge on what it is like to be poor. Also, by not staying in one location for a long period of time, she did not allow herself to develop any survival skills or shortcuts to help her situation.

Second, her book was effective because her normal lifestyle contrasted the one which she decided to live as a low-earning worker. If an individual was always working at a wage close to the poverty level and decided to write about it, the story wouldn’t be as interesting because to the writer, it would just be a story about his or her life as it always is. Because there is no shock value, it wouldn’t be easy for the writer to best describe their situation. Barbara Ehrenreich was effective because her own feeling of shock and helplessness communicated well to the reader because she did a good job at describing her feelings. I don’t believe a person who is normally poor would be able to express themselves as well. Therefore, Ehrenreich’s ability to contrast rather than compare to her normal life makes this story effective.

Finally, the author makes this an effective story by not just giving the reader her own opinions. She goes to great lengths to interview other co-workers to add more insights to her own. By telling other’s stories, and having the professional writer’s ability to put the correct words in place, Ehrenreich ends up telling the stories of poor workers in five different cities, which helps to complement her own experience. Making this a collaborative work gives emphasis to the plight of the working poor person who has to work long and hard hours at menial jobs every day just to keep a roof over their head, gas in the car and food on the table. And if the car runs out of gas, or the power goes out, or the bus breaks down, another problem develops. 

Ehrenreich does a good job at bringing this to our attention. Her use of detailed examples is excellent.

In all, this is a great story which probably needed to be told from a rich person’s point of view. It is easy to read, which makes it appealing for people of all economic and educational levels. It gives a great account on what it’s like to earn a living when you have to work at low paying jobs and shows the real world problems that these people face every day.