Jandos Rothstein
In the book Nickel and Dimed, we look into the life of Americans trying to live on the minimum wage as the author struggles through her own working-class experience. Barbara Ehrenreich’s goal is to demonstrate the reality of the “living wage” to see if it’s viable. At the introduction of the book, we’re told that on average it would take an hourly wage of $8.89 to “live” in the year she started this project. However, researchers estimated that a welfare recipient’s odds of landing a job with such a wage were 97 to 1. The Economic Policy Institute reported that in 1998—the year of the project—about 30 percent of the workforce worked for under $8 an hour, so from the start the odds were stacked against her. Yet even though the data shows that it’s impossible to live like this, the author decided to embark on the mission of working these jobs and living in these environments to see the mental and physical toll that it would have. Not only does she show readers the absurdity of the “living wage” by giving a detailed autopsy of the American dream, but I believe she also exposes the contradictions inherent in market-based capitalistic economies and the systemic cycle of poverty.
“Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America” by Barbara Ehrenreich
Throughout the book, Ehrenreich exposes the fallacy of a “living wage” and the inescapable trap that is the service industry. She comes to realize that many service industry jobs are actually full and employers are just preparing reserves in case of a worker leaving, because employers are aware of their atrocious conditions. The pay is under minimum wage, which forces waitstaff to earn from tips, making it hard to achieve a “living wage,” enough money to live comfortably, be sure of their next meal, and not have to work inhumane hours to do so. Yet workers do not unionize or try and fight these market-based economies because for them it’s the only option they are told about—it’s hard to organize and rally when you’re living paycheck to paycheck and can’t risk losing your job. Ehrenreich tries to find meaning in this work by chatting and mingling with the customers and finding purpose in work. However, purpose is not a supplement to physical treatment, and she abuses prescription pills to combat the toll on her body from repetitive movements that are frequent in the industry. Even the value she finds is shattered when her manager scolds her for spending too much time with the customers. In this industry, everything is run to max efficiency with no regard for enjoyment or personal connection. When she’s a writer, every word she writes is handpicked and conveys her message, but in the service industry, work becomes menial and impersonal. The extra costs of the medicine, the uniforms, and the mental stress shatter her and she leaves, while many of her co-workers who face the same struggles simply do not have the luxury of walking out. They are captives to the vicious cycle of capitalism, which ensures that they can never escape by giving them problems, such as physical pain, rising rent, and mental pain, with solutions only obtainable by spending their small wages. How are workers able to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” if they’re forever stuck in this abyss that’s poverty? This trap is demonstrative of the biggest lie of capitalism, that working hard will help you rise in society.
We also see the role of working-class people in society. In Maine, Ehrenreich works as a maid and cleans for the well-off, and their method of cleaning is only making sure the dirty parts do not show, not to remove bacteria. The wealthy’s houses are decorated with pointless ornaments and the job of the poor is to clean those ornaments, signifying the relationship between the rich and the poor: a relationship where the poor work to maintain the image of society that the wealthy want to keep. At her agency, The Maids, she jokes about how asking her co-workers about their backgrounds is similar to prisoners asking, “What are you in for?” Perhaps she’s right in this analysis: We are all prisoners to the current system due to some mistake or being born in the “wrong” family, not because these workers are lazy or unskilled, as some would think. The lower class, although they comprise the majority, are the “other,” and as Ehrenreich notices, all the characters of mass media, be it sitcoms or dramas, are members of the upper or upper-middle class, making it hard for workers to relate with each other. We went from rich white people being star characters to rich minorities being stars while the lower class still does not receive any recognition. The poor are invisible and have no representation; they are considered “anomalies,” though they are the ones who move the wheels of society. This is one of the main points and contradictions Ehrenreich observes. Thus it is extremely hard for class consciousness to form in the U.S.; this is apparent throughout the book, as we see little mention of unions and other forms of organization.
We also get a glimpse of how supercilious corporations maintain their hegemony over the American worker. This is done through interviews and personality tests, and Ehrenreich loses a job offer due to her acting too compassionate in one of the interviews, showing us that corporations require workers to become machines devoid of emotion for max efficiency. We see that even though workers are in high demand, they are manipulated to think that they’re expendable. Even though these workers are in a tight market and have a bargaining chip, the employers remove their chance to even bargain, as we see that throughout the recruiting process they never had time to discuss wages—no time for individual volition, which is an unreasonable fate faced by many Americans. Workers are told not to steal or waste their company’s time, but they have their own time wasted in the form of orientations and presentations. Time itself has become something commodified, and the old power dynamic of workers providing their time is reversed; now the corporations give workers the “opportunity” to work and spend their time. This concept of “time theft” is important as it shows how little they trust their own employees. The Walmart “family” runs on fear, as we see through Melissa, who is afraid of insulting Walmart or stealing their time. If these corporations are families, they are tantamount to strict crime families that rely on an oath of silence.
As Ehrenreich sees it, workers are the biggest philanthropists of society, putting up with unjust demands and maintaining bourgeois society by being an uncomplaining workforce. We see that most are not able to achieve a living wage, and in turn, do not “live”—instead, they suffer. Perhaps it’s time to question this vicious cycle we have created to feel safe in the status quo and begin to work as philanthropists for each other. We see that the visceral impulses of corporations are masked by the machine-like insidiousness of the markets and society itself. The book shows the need for breaking the simulacrum of freedom for the American worker and the refutation of the age-old lie “Work hard to get ahead.”
