Nickel and Dimed
Barbara Ehrenreich grew up in a middle-class family in Montana and became a writer and journalist. To find out if it
was possible to make ends meet working for around minimum wage, she did just that—she tried to survive living in
poverty by taking very low-paying jobs in several states and living within her means. In her book Nickel and Dimed:
On (Not) Getting By in America, she exposed the inequality and prejudice that a large number of Americans face
each day just working to survive.
Ehrenreich investigated the many “hidden” costs faced by low-wage workers. Many low-wage workers pay a high
cost for hotel or motel rooms since they cannot afford the security deposits on an apartment rental. Food was also
expensive and not terribly healthful as these workers lacked kitchens and adequate refrigeration.
One of the cities Ehrenreich worked in was Portland, Maine. In the course of her experiment on living on or just above
the minimum wage, she was asked to take several preemployment tests as part of the job application process.
“What these tests tell employers about potential employees is hard to imagine, since the ‘right’ answers should be
obvious to anyone who has ever encountered the principle of hierarchy and subordination. Do I work well with
others? You bet, but never to the point where I would hesitate to inform on them for the slightest infraction. Am I
capable of independent decision making? Oh yes, but I know better than to let this capacity interfere with a slavish
obedience to orders. At The Maids, a housecleaning service, I am given something called the ‘Accutrac personality
test,’ which warns at the beginning that ‘Accutrac has multiple measures which detect attempts to distort or ‘psych
out’ the questionnaire.’ Naturally I ‘never’ find it hard ‘to stop moods of self-pity,’ nor do I imagine that others are
talking about me behind my back or believe that ‘management and employees will always be in conflict because they
have totally different sets of goals.’ The real function of these tests, I decide, is to convey information not to the
employer but to the potential employee, and the information being conveyed is always: You will have no secrets from
us. We don’t just want your muscles and that portion of your brain that is directly connected to them, we want your
innermost self.
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The main thing I learn from the job-hunting process is that, despite all the help-wanted ads and job fairs, Portland is
just another $6–$7-an-hour town. This should be as startling to economists as a burst of exotic radiation is to
astronomers. If the supply (of labor) is low relative to demand, the price should rise, right? That is the ‘law.’ At one of
the maid services I apply at—Merry Maids—my potential boss keeps me for an hour and fifteen minutes, most of
which is spent listening to her complain about the difficulty of finding reliable help. It’s easy enough to think of a
solution, because she’s offering ‘$200 to $250’ a week for an average of forty hours’ work. ‘Don’t try to put that into
dollars per hour,’ she warns, seeing my brow furrow as I tackle the not-very-long division. ‘We don’t calculate it that
way.’ I do, however, and $5 to $6 an hour for what this lady freely admits is heavy labor with a high risk of repetitivestress injuries seems guaranteed to repel all mathematically able job seekers. But I am realizing that, just as in Key
West, one job will never be enough. In the new version of the law of supply and demand, jobs are so cheap—as
measured by the pay—that a worker is encouraged to take on as many of them as she possibly can.”
— from Nickel and Dimed:
On (Not) Getting By in America
Questions:
1. Making Connections How did Ehrenreich's personal experience working at low-paying jobs affect her
understanding of the challenges that many Americans face?
2. Identifying Cause and Effect What effect do you think Ehrenreich's book had on the public perception of poverty
in America?
3. Drawing Inferences How do you think society could improve conditions so that people with low-paying jobs would
be able to survive financially?