Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

As the saying goes, the plural of anecdote is not data. However, in Nickel & Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich presents her particular experiences as though they are scientific experiments that lead to one unarguable conclusion -- that the minimum wage must be raised. However, as scientific experiments, her experiences leave a lot to be desired. In the first place, Ehrenreich is palpably biased. She is a socialist, and while I don't think that being a socialist makes a person a poor journalist, it may tend to color one's interpretation of experiences in the workplace. I think it's fair to say that someone with a different worldview (let's say a capitalist) could have had the exact same experiences that Ehrenreich did on the job, but walk away with a completely different conclusion. Secondly, she seems to be arguing that wages are too low; that, as she states early on, we cannot expect people to live on the current minimum wage. However, the vast bulk of her write-up is not about the *economics* of her situation, but on other aspects of work that she finds distasteful. She talks about how degrading it is, to be expected to clean a floor on one's knees; or how she resents the drug-testing that is part of employee screening for certain jobs; or how working hard has a tendency to make a person sweat, which is unpleasant. Whether these things are good, bad, or otherwise is besides the point, really. If the minimum wage were raised, some house-cleaners would still be required to clean floors on their hands and knees, many jobs would still require drug-testing, and working hard would still lead to sweat. Ehrenreich seems to resent these jobs, not because they don't pay "enough" to meet some sort of standard that she deems necessary, but because they exist at all. While describing her stint as a maid, she makes an aside to rail against the fact that people want to keep their homes as sterile as a motel room or soap opera set. She hates the entire idea that some people would pay others to clean their homes, and this anger is besides the fact of the pay-scale involved, because she finds the *work* itself degrading. She hates the relationship of "master"/"servant," and brags how she, herself, has never hired help in that fashion. Of course, if she had hired help, then she could have paid them a "fair wage" or a "living wage" or whatever her socialist conscience demands of her -- which would be a nice deal, presumably, for the person she so employed -- but she doesn't do it because she hates the idea of people working in those kinds of jobs, at all. And so, as I say, most of the book is angry at the jobs she describes, not because of the economics involved, but because they exist. I find it hard to imagine her paradise, in which, apparently, no one works at jobs that she would personally find unpleasant. Would there be garbage collectors? Would there be nurses in retirement homes, cleaning bed pans? Raising the minimum wage would do nothing to eliminate the fact of these jobs, or the degrading experiences that Ehrenreich spends so much space in her book lamenting. When it comes to analyizing the actual economics of her situations, Ehrenreich never quite goes all the way, and her experiences don't quite measure up to reality. Her gimmick of staying a month in one place to see if she can collect enough income for the next month's rent is... an interesting one, but it's flawed in a few ways. In the first place, she often spends a bit of time -- especially in the beginning -- in a job hunt. So, she winds up not working the entire month. There are other times when she decides to quit from a job, and thereby loses time there. It would be one thing to see whether a full month's pay is enough to support a person, or not, but Ehrenreich's approach doesn't demonstrate this one way or the other. She also limits (and thereby lengthens) her job search, and her economic possibilities, by refusing to investigate jobs which she deems unsuitable for one reason or another. In her first stay, in Key West, she opts not to pursue an opportunity in telemarketing because of "personality conflict." Also, it just isn't the case that the true "working poor" are always new to a town, a situation, a living arrangement, etc. Yes -- they might be in a situation similar to Ehrenreich's for some amount of time, but eventually people have spent time in a locale. Eventually, they become accustomed to certain tasks, and then proficient. The first month of being a waitress might be quite the ordeal -- especially to a person accustomed to a writer's lifestyle. But people are adaptable, and if given enough time doing it, I suspect that some of the tasks she found so repellant at first would eventually have become second nature to her. Because every new task is so, well, new to Ehrenreich, it all leaves the strongest possible taste in her mouth. Real people in real situations grow tougher over time, and less sensitive to these kinds of tasks. Real people also often have a host of mechanisms to supplement their own efforts, economically. They work multiple jobs; they have roommates; they rely on the personal charity of friends and family; etc. I have personally made use of all of these tactics, at one time or another, and I currently have three roommates -- together, we share a house in Hollywood, at a price per person of *less* than some of the rents Ehrenreich took in her book. Ehrenreich rejects most of these out of hand, though she does make a couple of efforts at working two jobs, and seems to feel that having roommates is an atrocity of the capitalist system. One example she raises is that of a female co-worker who has a male roommate, and has had a couple of unwanted advances. Well, right -- sometimes roommates are inconvenient and/or pesky, but that fact of life will neither disintegrate nor change whether we raise the minimum wage or achieve some sort of Marxist utopia. Ehrenreich bothers to describe her single-person dwellings, and deplore the conditions there. All of her bedrooms are "small," whatever that means. At one point, she complains that a prospective unit doesn't even have a television. Is a television now a necessity on the order of food, clothing and shelter? Is the grand conclusion that Ehrenreich comes to that being poor is less desirable than being wealthy? That it is difficult to move into a new city, without family or friends, without marketable skills, and immediately secure a wonderful place to live and a perfect-fit job? That not having money is, at times, a real inconvenience? Ehrenreich doesn't want to scrub other peoples' toilets, and she wants a large living room -- I get that -- but this is a far cry from the purported goal of her book, which was to demonstrate that a person is unable to make rent by working these sorts of unskilled jobs. Yes, the unskilled must rely on other stratagems to provide all that they need, at times. They must sometimes have roommates, and friends, and family, and work extra hard, or do those jobs that others do not want to do. It has always been thus, in every society, and stretching back through all of time. Entry level jobs are termed so because they are not designed to be life-long careers. People need to be able to stay in a position and promote, or learn skills for a more involved/better paying job, or find another strategy to get through life, like marrying a better-providing partner, etc. Ehrenreich sees it as an indictment of the system that a person cannot take an entry level position and stay there for a lifetime, without roommates, without personal charity, without advancement or education, and be in most respects just as well-off as anyone else. Her idea is flawed on its face, and reminds me of a joke: A man is caught in a flood, but refuses to evacuate because he is a devout religionist, and believes that God will rescue him. Neighbors come, insisting that the man leave, but he sends them off, saying that God will save him. The Fire Department comes, but the man sends them away, sure that God will save him. Finally, a rescue helicopter shouts down with a megaphone, saying that they're dropping a ladder -- the man's last chance to get away -- but the man waves it away, declaring that God will save him. The man dies, and appears before God. The man is incensed, and demands to know why God had forsaken him in his hour of need. God says, "Forsaken you? What are you talking about? Who do you think sent the neighbors, firemen & chopper!?" Ehrenreich determines that she will make no use of any of the opportunites our society presents for a person to get by, and ultimately advance, from entry-level work and poverty... and then declares the difficulties she experiences to be proof that the system is broken. But the truth is, the system only works for us when we are seriously intent on making it work. Ehrenreich did not want the system to work. Instead, she wanted articles that supported her socialst ideology, and in that -- as scientists with pre-determined agendas often do -- she got what she was after. There are many other reasons why this book is flawed. Ehrenreich has an unbearable self-righteousness that soaks through the book like a sponge cake, and her contempt for anyone of the "owning class" is hateful, and sad. But my review has gone on too long already, and the central reason why this book does not work is that, at its core, it does not in fact do what it claims that it does. It does not prove what it sets out to prove. It provides anecdotes, but ultimately does not deliver the data.