Kouther Al-hussainy

Introduction to Sociology

Book: Nickel and Dimed

The book begins with Barbara Ehrenreich starting to apply for jobs at her hometown Key

West in Florida where she wants to have the experience women face as they work on the average

pay of $7 an hour. She applies for housekeeping and supermarket attendant. Out of the many

applications, she gets a job in "Hearthside" hotel as a waitress, a position she did not apply for.

She works on a shift of 2.00 pm to 10.00 pm and earns $ 2.43 per hour. Unlike most employees

in the hotel, Barbara's salary cannot sustain all her needs like rent and most of the employees

spend in hotels and cars. At the facility, they are subjected to compulsory drug tests, she gets a

second job at Jerry's restaurant where she works from 8.am to 2.00 pm. At Jerry's restaurant,

work is too harsh as employees are not given breaks due to the busy influx of tourists. Barbara

moves to form Key West and finds a trailer where she will be living. At Jerry’s restaurant,

Barbara also clashes with the management just as in Hearthside Hotel.

In August, the writer moves to Maine where employers are desperately begging for workers. She

gets a car and lives in a hotel because that is what most workers do. Ehrenreich gets an apartment

for $ 120 a week with a $ 100 deposit. The writer continues with more application, personality

tests, and opinion surveys in the cleaning and retail sectors and she starts to develop a friendship

with some of her workmates. Lastly, Barbara moves to Minneapolis where she would find a

higher wage job with cheaper rents. She gets interested in working at Walmart but gets a job at
Menards where she is paid $ 8.50 per hour. She fears the drug tests because she has recently used

marijuana and she begins to spend time detoxing herself and she ends up getting the job at

Walmart.

The author’s question was how American women survive with low wages averaging $ 7

an hour and managing bills like gas, commute, and rents. To get the answer and the real

experience, Barbara applies for housekeeping jobs but instead gets a waitress job. At the job,

Ehrenreich finds that management always quarrels with the workers and the working conditions

are tough. At some points, the author finds that some places have harsh working conditions like

drug tests, long hours and restricted talking with customers. Lastly, the author finds that most

management creates a barrier between them and employees.

The most interesting concept about the book is how the author takes a low profile and

applies for low-paying jobs to have a personal touch with the idea she wants to write about. In

most cases, the authors get the real content of the book by interviewing a population of interest

but in this case, Barbara delved deep into the experience, and therefore, she writes the book with

a lot of life's experience presenting her audience with a personal experience. The advantage her

experience has to the audience is that it presents a high sense of appeal on what kind of situation

the low wages the women of the situation she was in were going through. Ehrenreich has

highlighted to the audience some of the conditions she was subjected to for example, while

working as a waitress in Hearthside she earns $ 2.43 per hour and from 2.00 pm to 10.00 pm

shift. The wages cannot sustain her bills and she finds another place to work for extra income. At

work, there are cases of employers relentlessly degrading employees. For instance, at Jerry’s
restaurant, she describes Stu and Philip as relentless and villains. She dares by confronting

managers and stands for the truth. As a worker, Barbara acted as an advocate and source of

comfort for her workmates in times of difficulties. She rejects the aspects of drug testing and low

wages which the waitress cannot use to rent houses.

In her book, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, Barbara Ehrenreich

unpacks some of the social problems faced in America especially in the 1996 Welfare Act where

Americans worked in poor conditions. As an investigative journalist, Barbara underscores two

aspects, mainly power and class and global inequality that existed between the rich and the poor

in America. Power and class and social inequality are closely intertwined, and one aspect might

be affected by the other. For some of the key concepts learned in the course, I have developed an

interest in the two aspects because they depict reality in society. Additionally, power and class,

and social inequality highlight the loopholes existing in society irrespective of the better acts,

bills, and laws set to promote equality, fight class segregation and racism, and proper use of

power.

Power is the ability to control resources, have authority over a group of people, and

influence them in a specific direction. In the coursebook, I have learned that power can be used

to command economic resources and economic resources can also be used to command power.

Power has to do with what one can present such as resources and other items and services of

economic value. In the book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, Barbara

explains how power has been used in restaurants, hotels, and Walmart to employ staff and

control them. Such organizations use their power to set recruitment criteria, wages, and setting
standards for employees like drug testing. For example, while working in Florida at Hearthside

restaurant, Barbara is employed in the restaurant section where she qualifies for a higher pay per

day due to her fluency in English, but she is paid $ 2.43 per hour including the tips she receives.

The payment is so little that she cannot live in a decent house and cater for other bills as well.

The same problem is with her colleagues who also cannot afford the rent and other basics and

therefore seek to stay in hotels. The hotel owners are aware of the underpayment they offer to the

employees, but they have been silent about it. They use their power to dictate what they think is

right for them such as maximizing the profit at the expense of the desperate women who are left

with no option of jobs. This is a true reflection of employees’ exploitation and the misuse of

power by the facility management. From the class, I learned that those who own resources can

use them to gain power. To maintain their titles and control, the subjects are usually given low

payments and wages to keep them voiceless. The subjects can no longer afford other

commodities, they also obtain the necessities like food and housing through straining from their

thin budget of $ 1100 estimated monthly income.

Class and global inequality are greatly depicted in the book as has been demonstrated in

the class. Class and global inequality is the aspect of social division which is usually influenced

by economic and power controls. Those who have the powers and control the economy classify

themselves differently from those who have not or those with little. Global inequality and class

also mean that there is overrepresentation or underrepresentation of a given group, for instance,

women can be underrepresented in the job market. In her book, Ehrenreich demonstrates how the

society in America has class and social inequality. First in employment, the management of the
organizations where she has worked, degraded employees. While working at Hearthside, Barbara

describes Stu and Philip who are the managers at the place as whip-crackers who seek to degrade

other employees. This shows that the management of the facility has set a class and is regrouping

the employees and from the management and are separated either by leadership, the management

or earning, and economic power. The author argues that the organization has reduced the

employees to powerless individuals with no authority to make a decision and for this reason, they

can be easily fired, subjected to a urine test for drug analysis, and other unethical practices by the

organization. The drug test analysis is not conducted in the management but only on the

employees because of the perception about them as drug users. The organizations never trusted

employees like Barbara as loyal citizens and to be sure, they had to be subjected to a compulsory

drug test.

The employees in the category of Barbara cannot afford a house rent and they either live

in containers, hostels, or hotels which do not require a deposit of rent but ends up being

expensive because of the food in the hotels. In the hotels, such low-income earners are not

allowed to access the kitchen and prepare their food but rely on the food sold to them which

ultimately becomes expensive. While working in Portland, Maine, Barbara finds that most

employees live in hotels in the tourist low season but are forced to vacate during tourist peak

season due to increased hotel charges. This is a class and global inequality that exists between

the workers and the tourists. The tourists displace the workers who are unable to live in hotels

because of increased charges for high demand.

inequalities and class. From the book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by America, Barbara

Ehrenreich, together with the coursebook, it is clear that society has power and class and global

inequality which occur in corporations, institutions, governments, and among societies. Fighting

such prejudices in society has been hard because some of these vices have been cultured for long

in the society and have become part of the society. Changing the aspect of power and class and

global inequality starts from the mind and not the laws.

The book is important because it underscores the idea of low wages in American society

affecting women in a hotel, grocery, and other retail business like Walmart. The true picture of

these organizations has been shown in the book and the audience has seen how managers use

their position to oppress the workers, underpay workers, and get a lot of income from the hard

work of workers. Such management takes the privilege of their position to create a difference in

income and authority thus creating a social class and global inequality as was learned in the

class. This book reveals to the audience that prejudice is affecting the country like racism and

other social profiling exist even with some of the reputable organizations like Walmart. I have

learned that social profiling only breaks a country, creates tension that will one day escalate to a

long-term social problem like civil wars. From the book I have learned that workers should be

treated with fairness, fair wages, and other welfare provisions like commute, and rental

allowances and that we should always be willing to help those who need it no matter the job we

have.
 Works Cited

Ehrenreich, Barbara, Zinta Konrad, and Alice Snelgrove. Nickel-and-Dimed: On (Not)

Getting By in America. College of DuPage, 2005.