Nickel & Dimed: The Minimum Wage World

Nickel & Dimed

In Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed: On Not Getting by in America, I learned so much, even though the world of minimum wage is not new to me. When I did the minimum wage jobs, I was living with my parents, and had no expenses. In my conservative upbringing, the word “welfare” is looked upon with disgust. Even though I was never specifically taught to think so, I have learned through osmosis that being on welfare just means that you haven’t been working hard enough, pulling your weight, or doing what you are supposed to be doing.

Ehrenreich does a great job at proving what I have learned was not all that correct. Of course, the cost of living is really high, especially in California. I have actually met someone who, because of high gas prices, was living out of his car. He simply could not afford the commute from Hemet to Murrieta everyday, and began living in his car in Murrieta where he worked.

Ehrenreich also tells of the reality of this existence: it is not possible to meet living costs with just one minimum wage job. That is really rather depressing. Ehrenreich does not focus completely on accounting in her book, she also focuses on the types of labor she got to do. I have worked as a housecleaner, a hostess, and in fast food, to name a few of my minimum wage credentials. I know just how difficult these types of jobs can be; they wore me out as a teenager.

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I can only imagine how timely must be for an older metabolism. She really drew me in with her experiences: as gross as it was, I was right there with her scrubbing disgusting toilets and dealing with horrible bosses and cranky customers. With my own experience, I found that she described the work most accurately. What was possibly the most fascinating aspect of her book were the details on her encounters with the working class. Managers are horrible. They feel no compulsion to treat their employees with dignity, because if they go, there is always going to be someone new to hire. One day, after cleaning an especially disgusting bathroom at Burger King, I said to my shift leader, “I simply do not get paid enough to do THAT. I should organize a strike among all fast food workers.” At first, she said, “a strike like that would destroy the economy.” Then, she paused, and said, “Except that everyone who strikes will be replaced in five minutes.” Ehrenreich highlights this aspect of the job.

Pretty soon, like when she worked at Wal-Mart, you feel like the store or place of employment depends on so much that if you were to quit, the store would be chaos without you. I felt this same way when I quit Burger King: surely, without me, they would need to close down for a couple of hours or even a day. When they didn’t, I truly felt how replaceable I Was. Ehrenreich definitely knew that she was replaceable, but she also wrote about that which is not replaceable: the relationships that she formed with the workers. I was particularly touched when she gave her living quarters to Gail. In the afterword, she recognized how important it was to form these bonds, and how tricky it was to navigate the social workplace “from the bottom up.” In my own experience, I have also found this to be true. It really helps to be socially adept, and good at sizing up people. She highlights how important it was for her not to make enemies, and to take the advice of her fellow workers. When I worked at Subway, I made enemies with this guy named Adam who was the managers’ favorite employee. I told on him for stealing, because he did a lot of it, and I was asked to leave.

Ehrenreich experienced something similar At heard cleaning job. It is important to hold up the social and job-related hierarchy at all times. She discarded the hierarchy at her cleaning job, and was never forgiven by her coworkers. It was good to read this book to be educated on points I did not really understand: why welfare is important, just how hard it is to make a living and meet the expenses that come with living alone. It also highlighted many things I already knew about minimum wage work — that it is hard, that the menial jobs require some intelligence, that forming alliances in the workplace is important. I think that some of our political leaders should do what Ehrenreich did, for just one month, and find out for themselves how hard it is when you don’t have everything going for you.