Nickel and Dimed

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America is a book written by Barbara Ehrenreich. Written from the perspective of the undercover journalist, it sets out to investigate the impact of the 1996 welfare reform act on the "working poor" in the United States. In some ways it is similar to George Orwell's much earlier Down and Out in Paris and London, German investigative reporter Günter Wallraff's Ganz Unten (The Lowest of the Low), and John Ho... More

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America is a book written by Barbara Ehrenreich. Written from the perspective of the undercover journalist, it sets out to investigate the impact of the 1996 welfare reform act on the "working poor" in the United States. In some ways it is similar to George Orwell's much earlier Down and Out in Paris and London, German investigative reporter Günter Wallraff's Ganz Unten (The Lowest of the Low), and John Howard Griffin's Black Like Me. The events related in the book took place between spring 1998 and summer 2000. The book was first published in 2001 by Metropolitan Books. An earlier version appeared as an article in the January 1999 issue of Harper's magazine. Ehrenreich later wrote a companion book, Bait and Switch (published September 2005), which discusses her attempt to find a white-collar job. "Too lazy to work" and "a job will defeat poverty" are ideals held by traditionalists. Suggesting problems with the argument, Ehrenreich investigates...

Less