Jandos Rothstein
My father is a poster child for the American dream. In 1983, he, a rowdy, non-English-speaking preteen, arrived in America with his family. Fourteen years later, he graduated from medical school with two Ivy League educations under his belt. James Truslow Adams described the American dream to be “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement.” He pushed the idea that if you put your mind to it and work hard, you can accomplish just about anything. But as the world marches forward, it seems as if the American dream may have been left tramped upon in the past.
“Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America” by Barbara Ehrenreich
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich follows her personal journey as a well-off, upper-middle-class journalist delving into low-wage America. Ehrenreich, spurred by a desire to better understand 1996’s welfare reforms, places herself directly into the lives of those affected. Throughout her time as a low-wage worker, it becomes increasingly apparent that in present-day America, Adams’s idea of the American dream is becoming almost impossible to achieve. Nickel and Dimed demonstrates how the classic American dream can no longer be achieved because low-wage workers lack market freedoms and are getting their humanity taken away from them by employers and other players in the economy.
Ehrenreich’s experiences in Nickel and Dimed shine a light on how low-income workers are barred from reaching the American dream through hard work because they lack freedom from not getting paid a livable wage. While working as a maid, Ehrenreich is surrounded by diligent co-workers who put everything into their jobs. Yet despite their hard work, all the maids are unable to lead stable lives. One maid doesn’t even have enough money to buy lunch and gets dizziness during her eight- to nine-hour workday. In theory, a person who works hard for eight to nine hours a day should be able to support themselves and earn a livable wage. But in America, that is not the case. An essay by Robert Kuttner and Ganesh Sitaraman titled “What Kind of Economy Works Best? The Interplay of Markets and Democracy” discusses the freedoms of individuals. It describes the free-market system as a system where “citizens are free not just to choose what products to buy but what occupations or professions to enter and where to live.” Low-wage workers in America do not have those freedoms. As a maid, Ehrenreich’s co-worker gets paid so little that she isn’t even given the option to “choose what products to buy” for food because she lacks funds to buy any product at all. This is further demonstrated with Ehrenreich’s co-workers while working as a waitress. According to Kuttner and Sitaraman, one possesses market freedom when they are free to choose where they live. Many of Ehrenreich’s co-workers, and other low-wage workers across the nation, are forced to live in motels because “where [are they] supposed to get a month’s rent and a month’s deposit for an apartment?” Because of gross underpayment, hardworking Americans don’t possess the freedoms they deserve to work and live where they want. They cannot save enough money to look long term. This prevents them from being able to begin the path of achieving the American dream.
In addition to a lack of market freedom, low-wage Americans cannot rise within the socioeconomic pyramid because of constant repression from employers and other players in the economy, which keep low-wage workers down and take away their humanity and value. Repression denies an individual’s positive freedom. Positive freedom is described in the previously mentioned essay by Kuttner and Sitaraman as the idea that “freedom isn’t just about not being oppressed, it’s about having the opportunity to flourish.” Unlike the middle- and upper-class workforce, low-wage workers are discouraged from, and sometimes even punished for, going above and beyond. As a waitress, Ehrenreich describes her co-worker going out of her way to do her job well. For example, the co-worker puts more croutons on a salad than management allows and “dips into her own tip money to buy biscuits and gravy for an out-of-work mechanic who’s used up all his money on dental surgery.”
An upper- or middle-class person taking these actions would be commended and possibly even deemed a hero. But as a low-wage worker, these actions only result in less money for essential goods and if discovered, punishment for breaking the rules. These consequences work to create a system where workers are discouraged from flourishing and being the best at what they do. Later in the book, Ehrenreich realizes many low-wage workers suffer from “chronic deprivation” of approval. In such a world, going above and beyond for other people makes a person feel human, needed, and most importantly, validated. By punishing workers for serving others to the best of their ability, employers are denying workers their humanity and quashing their initiative. An individual’s initiative is what makes America so great and the American dream so desirable.
The effects of denying workers their humanity and opportunities to flourish are evident within the book. Over just a short period of time as a waitress, Ehrenreich regresses from being a strong-willed woman willing to forsake her privilege to one who is unwilling to stand up for her co-worker. She says, “So why didn’t I intervene? Certainly not because I was held back by the kind of moral paralysis that can mask as journalistic objectivity. On the contrary, something new—something loathsome and servile—had infected me … In real life I am moderately brave, but plenty of brave people shed their courage in POW camps, and maybe something similar goes on in the infinitely more congenial milieu of the low-wage American workplace.”
The setting and everyday interactions that low-wage workers experience quickly chip away at what makes society continue to function in the face of adversity and terror: humanity. Without humanity, low-wage workers, who make up a large part of society, are reduced to mass production lines of service. Without humanity, dreams cannot be achieved. The American dream is no exception.
Nickel and Dimed highlights low-wage Americans’ lack of freedom and points out the striking loss of workers’ humanity, signifying the impossibility of achieving the American dream. As people, we rely on the everyday heroes who continue to provide hope. We cannot continue to devalue and dehumanize them. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, many low-wage workers have finally been recognized as essential heroes, but many are now unemployed and at risk of being forgotten.
We can only hope that the pandemic is the excuse politicians and those in power need to set aside their egos and finally tackle the problems in low-wage America. Perhaps it is only in an idealist world seen by the youth that maybe, just maybe, a new American dream will be born.
