Sometimes I read actual literature: Nickel and Dimed

I picked up a free used copy of Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed and decided to give it a shot, since I don't like being seen reading Twilight in public.

For those of you who haven't taken Intro to Sociology in the past five years, Ehrenreich takes a break from being a journalist and goes "undercover" to see what life is like as a member of the working poor. Whether it's in a Twin Cities Wal-Mart or a restaurant in Key West, she abandons her upper-class privilege and guts out living on scant hourly salaries. Spoiler alert: she thinks wages are too low.

To my surprise, it's very lighthearted. That's not to say that it's a cheerful romp through the travails of the lower class, but Ehrenreich's voice and sense of humor keep the proceedings from being too depressing. A nonfiction book such as this lives and dies on how well you identify with the author, and Ehrenreich is a very likable protagonist. She's done her research on nationwide trends, too; anyone willing to dismiss her reports as anecdotal evidence would do well to check out her footnotes. Nickel and Dimed is dependently liberal but it's not a screed.

Nickel and Dimed was written and published during a period of American prosperity, in the sweet spot of the dot-com bubble. Ehrenreich continually describes a tight labor market and how the poor have vanished from the public consciousness. It's grimly amusing how times have changed.

There's no question that Nickel and Dimed works, but whether it holds up under scrutiny or not is debatable. Though it's now a staple of college classes, it's not as academically sound as, say, William Julius Wilson's When Work Disappears (which, incidentally, is also ten times as depressing). It's no secret that Ehrenreich resides on the left side of the political spectrum, but the casual reader doesn't realize how so. According to Very Reliable Source Wikipedia, she's involved with the Democratic Socialists of America and NORML. This information doesn't discredit her, of course, but it's valid to assume that in writing Nickel and Dimed, she found what she was looking for.

That's the assertion of Adam Shepard, anyway, who wrote Scratch Beginnings as a response. Some cursory research into his book - where he sets out to find work in Charleston, SC with $25 and nothing else - has made me interested in reading it, not that my bookshelf isn't crowded enough as it is. Ehrenreich found nothing but failure; he ended up with a car, an apartment, and some money in savings. Of course, he's fresh out of college whereas she's a woman in her fifties, and he seemed to be pretty biased going into his social experiment himself. Ehrenreich relied heavily on residential hotels for shelter, a far more costly choice than a long-term apartment lease. But her experiment requires her to take short-term housing, and her research shows that she's not the only one blowing money on week-by-week housing. Nonetheless, it's always good to stay skeptical, even when reading a lauded work like Nickel and Dimed. Ehrenreich has a new book out about the pitfalls of optimism, and I'd love to check it out if I ever have the time. Shitty books don't read themselves, you know.