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1-Page Summary of Nickel and Dimed
Overall Summary
The book Nickel and Dimed opens with Barbara Ehrenreich, a writer from Key West, Florida. She’s talking to her editor about ideas for an article. She usually writes articles about poverty in the United States, but lately she’s been thinking that someone should try living on minimum wage as millions of Americans are being kicked off welfare by new legislation. The editor says she should do it herself and write an article about it.
The author is writing a book about poverty. She’s going to live below the poverty line for a month in each of three cities, and see if she can meet her basic needs while living on government assistance. Barbara grew up in an environment where money was plentiful, but her family came from generations of miners who were poor. She values the flexibility of her job because hardship has always been present in her life. Although this isn’t an accurate representation of what it’s like to be poor, she recognizes that this experiment will help give insight into how people survive when they don’t have much money or access to resources.
Barbara starts in Key West, Florida. Her first goal is to find a place to live, but it’s difficult because she has a budget of $500 per month and needs to stay close to her job. After searching for weeks, she finally finds an affordable trailer that’s 45 minutes from the city center. She wants to get hotel housekeeping jobs since waitressing made her tired as a teenager and she thinks she’d be good at it after years of cleaning at home. Barbara applies for dozens of positions advertised in newspapers; however, most ads are not open or they’re seeking service workers rather than housekeepers who speak English fluently like Barbara does.
Barbara is sent to work at the Hearthside, a restaurant connected with her hotel. She makes less money than she had expected and has trouble making ends meet. Everyone else in this world lives paycheck to paycheck, and many of them live out of their cars or vans. Barbara finds that even though they are all struggling together, people don’t help each other out much because everyone’s too busy trying to survive on what little they have. After working two jobs for a while, Barbara quits one job so that she can make more money at another fast food chain called Jerry’s where she meets George who helps her cope with the stress from both jobs by being friendly towards her when no one else will be nice to her because of how hard it is for them not only living but also working there as well. She realizes through this experience that life isn’t fair for anyone but especially not those who work full-time jobs and still struggle just like those who have multiple part-time jobs do; however she does find some solace in knowing that others are struggling just like you are which gives you comfort since you know someone understands your pain/struggle better than anyone possibly could.
The author then chooses Maine as a place to live, because it’s white enough that she doesn’t think she’ll stick out. She has trouble finding work in Portland though, since the labor market is tight and there are few affordable housing options. The best option for her is the Blue Haven Motel which offers low-cost apartments by the week during off-season. She also applies for multiple jobs but finds that one of them requires applicants to take a personality test called ‘The Maids’ which seems like it was designed to weed out people who aren’t conformist or willing to follow orders without question, though they’re easy questions if you know how to “psych” them out.
She gets the first two jobs she applies for. She’s assigned to work as a dietary aide at an Alzheimer’s unit, and she finds it much easier than her husband’s job. The other is cleaning houses with a company called The Maids, where they show you videos on how to clean the different rooms of a house in their allotted time. Most of the women still don’t have enough money to eat more than snacks most days.
