I finished Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed On (Not) Getting By in America today. And, to shake things up a bit, I'm going to post my analysis first and the supporting information in the extended entry.

The second half of the book is the story of Barbara's move to the Minneapolis area. This section is immediately followed by Barbara's general analysis of her experience.

In Minneapolis, Barbara has trouble finding housing. She meets almost immediate success in finding jobs - two, actually, and ultimately she decides to work for Wal-Mart. This is not without a bit of drama, for, you see, Barbara is concerned that she cannot pass the drug test, which, very quickly, you can tell she ideologically disagrees with. Nonetheless, drug tests are very prevalent in gaining employment, and I find Ms. Ehrenreich very irresponsible for "transgressing" with drugs during her science experiment, as she calls it. Yes, I realize this is dripping with distaste, but I actually threw the book after reading a few pages of Barbara's experience with this, so forgive me. (It didn't dent until I threw it a second time, at which time it made a loud SPLAT against the wall and frightened three cats).

At any rate - Barbara works at Wal-Mart. She makes about what one would expect to make at Wal-Mart. She brings to light the overwhelming prevalence of Theory X in management (my words), and I've seen this, too. It's disturbing, and I have to agree with her when she says it drags the workers down. Basically, Theory X states that people don't want to work, they'll not want to help or do anything you don't specifically MAKE them do, and that they're unwilling or unable to effect positive outcomes without intense supervision. Theory X means you have to ask management to use the restroom.

The Wal-Mart job goes about like I expect it would. It's got a bunch of corporate hoo-hah that Barbara correctly identifies, and throughout much of this section I agree with her assessment of the job as a whole.

The problem here is housing. Barbara can't find something to suit her needs at a decent price. This happens for her everywhere, though, and I'm not sure if it's just that I've only lived in Missouri as an adult, but I can ALWAYS find affordable housing. The only place I've paid anywhere NEAR $500 was when I moved to St. Louis and had a job that paid me well enough to accommodate that. On Page 170, she mentions something close to what I stated in the review of the first part of this book. Housing costs should not make up more than 30% of your income. Period.

Barbara wasn't ever able to live by that. I can't be a good judge of why without talking with her, and I may shoot her an e-mail. It's possible she picked cities without knowing enough about where to find good, cheap housing in a decent neighborhood. It's possible she was too rushed. Who really knows? This does seem to be the biggest thorn in her side in each experience, though.

The last section of the book is Barbara's analysis. Overall, I'm impressed with this. It's much less personal than the rest of the book and contains well-written analysis with cites from others regarding the points she wishes to make. One thing I must pick at. Again Barbara rails on the drug test, but she uses it as a singling-out of "indignities imposed on low-wage workers." Barbara, I hate to tell you this, but the drug tests are pretty ubiquitous across pay scales and companies. Sorry, that point fails.

All in all, a good read. It could have been done better, though, but, of course, this would have made for a more scholarly, less interesting book. Ideally, Barbara would not have moved. Ever. She would have found steady, accommodating housing, and then tried this experiment in that manner. I believe the book would have been more plausable and would more have mirrored the life of someone who is working in jobs such as these. Basically, I think I could've taken a decent stab at something like this. Of course, my focus would've been completely different - how to make the most of an experience like this (my low-wage jobs were accommodating of daytime graduate school and still full time).

Thanks for reading - individual points below.

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Posted by: hln at 10:00 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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1 As you're probably aware, Theory X has been viewed with disdain by the I/O psych community for decades. Far be it from the management of a socially responsible entity such as Wal-Mart to be swayed by pesky empirical evidence and reasoned analysis.

Posted by: hans at October 20, 2003 08:37 AM (CWwGn)

2 Regarding this point "Page 204: 'Employers will offer almost anything - free meals, subsidized transportation, store discounts - rather than raise wages.' I agree." This is very true. The practice of "fringe benefits" is well-documented. The reason businesses do this is because they can get the benefit for cheaper than you can and giving you the benefit brings greater value to the firm than paying you the monetary equivalent. Basically, as you might expect, it's cheaper. But fringe benefits should not be derided. Notice that it's cheaper for you as well to receive these items, such as store discounts, than it would be for you to acquire them on your own. These represent payment allbeit non-monetary. Further, surveys of employees indicate that fringe benefits are an essential part of job satisfaction. If employers did away with fringe benefits and just gave you the money they pay to get it, you'd probably be shocked 1) at how little they pay for such benefits and 2) how much more important it is to you to just have the benefit and not the money.

Posted by: Trey Givens at October 20, 2003 10:15 AM (yaMs/)

3 Regarding this point "Page 204: 'Employers will offer almost anything - free meals, subsidized transportation, store discounts - rather than raise wages.' I agree." This is very true. The practice of "fringe benefits" is well-documented. The reason businesses do this is because they can get the benefit for cheaper than you can and giving you the benefit brings greater value to the firm than paying you the monetary equivalent. Basically, as you might expect, it's cheaper. But fringe benefits should not be derided. Notice that it's cheaper for you as well to receive these items, such as store discounts, than it would be for you to acquire them on your own. These represent payment allbeit non-monetary. Further, surveys of employees indicate that fringe benefits are an essential part of job satisfaction. If employers did away with fringe benefits and just gave you the money they pay to get it, you'd probably be shocked 1) at how little they pay for such benefits and 2) how much more important it is to you to just have the benefit and not the money.

Posted by: Trey Givens at October 20, 2003 10:15 AM (yaMs/)

4 Regarding this point "Page 204: 'Employers will offer almost anything - free meals, subsidized transportation, store discounts - rather than raise wages.' I agree." This is very true. The practice of "fringe benefits" is well-documented. The reason businesses do this is because they can get the benefit for cheaper than you can and giving you the benefit brings greater value to the firm than paying you the monetary equivalent. Basically, as you might expect, it's cheaper. But fringe benefits should not be derided. Notice that it's cheaper for you as well to receive these items, such as store discounts, than it would be for you to acquire them on your own. These represent payment allbeit non-monetary. Further, surveys of employees indicate that fringe benefits are an essential part of job satisfaction. If employers did away with fringe benefits and just gave you the money they pay to get it, you'd probably be shocked 1) at how little they pay for such benefits and 2) how much more important it is to you to just have the benefit and not the money.

Posted by: Trey Givens at October 20, 2003 10:15 AM (yaMs/)

5 uh. Ok. My computer freaked out. I totally did not intend to post the same thing three times.

Posted by: Trey Givens at October 20, 2003 10:19 AM (yaMs/)

6 Third time's the charm, Trey hln

Posted by: hln at October 20, 2003 01:19 PM (CWwGn)

7 That, and people aren't motivated by money or you would get a hell of a lot more telemarketing calls. Or strip clubs and prostitutes. Ooh - that's a good point.

Posted by: TheYeti at October 20, 2003 01:45 PM (+yDzP)

8 For the record, I coined Wal-martian independently about 2 weeks ago here: http://radio.weblogs.com/0126975/categories/filthyLies/2003/10/08.html#a554 And I've really enjoyed your review posts. Excellent work.

Posted by: Harvey at October 21, 2003 01:19 PM (tJfh1)

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As you all know if you've been visiting this site, I've tasked myself with reading and critiquing Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.

This will be a long post. I plan to offer the book's premise, talk a little bit about how Barbara defines science, illustrate what I find to be unrealistic, offer places where I identify with the author, and then conclude the analysis of what I've read. I'm 119 pages into the book, which is a natural stopping point because of the book's structure.

The Premise

The author tasks herself with working low-wage jobs and then writing about how she fares. She works (so far) as a waitress, a housekeeper, a maid, and a kitchen worker in a nursing home. (There are other jobs, but I've not read that far) and then chronicles her experience for you, for me, and for anyone else who is interested.

Science

Barbara, as I will refer to her from here on out, calls this a science experiment. Unfortunately, there's nothing scientific about it, as the setting is not real. In the illustration section, I'll point to snippets from the book that seem like vagaries to me, since I'm someone who's had to subsist on a pretty small budget for a lengthy period of time. But, I'll jump right in, in the interest of keeping the post short (HA!)

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Posted by: hln at 10:03 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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I've now read 106 pages of the book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. I have another 10 or so to go before I've completed the third section - the second section that's actually about Barbara's work experiences.

Expect a long, long, long post tonight. I probably won't finish it until after the gym, though, so it may not be up until 9:30 p.m. CST or thereabouts.

Oh, and I commented on Andrew's blog about this again. Please, everyone, be the courteous and wonderful people I know you to be (and thanks for the support). Andrew is my former boss, and I believe some of this is tongue in cheek - for purposes of discussion. Anne is his wife and has done some wonderful things with educating children in other countries.

I agree that there is injustice in this world and that, as one of you said, "life isn't fair." I also believe in charitable work and charity organizations and the wonderful things they do. I just don't believe they should be run by the government and mandated thus (yours an my tax dollars).

hln

Posted by: hln at 11:41 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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I have to go read Nickel and Dimed On (Not) Getting By in America. Here's why. I don't think/feel I can make an effective argument until I have, and, believe me, I want to be effective.

Just grabbed it offa Brian's bookshelf.

He ranted about it for quite some time, so I suspect I'll enjoy in that macabre sort of way. And I'll head off the argument that I'm "not making up my own mind" by stating that da spouse and I don't often disagree about matters such as these, having both worked blue/pink collar while being classically educated. And made far less than $14.00 per hour.

hln

Posted by: hln at 05:53 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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