Barbara Ehrenreich

Barbara Ehrenreich, "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America"

Barbara Ehrenreich (1941- ) was born in Butte, Montana and earned a B.A. from Reed College in 1963 and a Ph.D. from Rockefeller University in 1968. Ehrenreich has worked as a college professor, editor, and columnist for such magazines as Mother Jones and Time. Her books include The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment (1983), Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War (1997), and Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America (2001). She also contributes to periodicals such as The Progressive, the New York Times Book Review, and Aperture. Among other honors and prizes Ehrenreich's won a National Magazine Award in 1980 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1987. "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America," which takes a look at the plight of low-income wage earners in the U.S., is an adaptation of a chapter from her book of the same name.

CONTENT

1. What is the author's stated purpose in undergoing her experiment?
2. What is Ehrenreich's initial goal for her per-hour wage? How does this change over the course of the essay?
3. Discuss what the author learns about want ads during her job searches.
4. When did mandatory bathroom breaks become part of U.S. labor law? Does the year surprise you?
5. What two rules does Ehrenreich hold herself to during her job search? Does she ever break them?
6. Define the term side work.
7. What jobs does the author hold over the course of the essay? What's similar about them? What's different?

STRATEGY AND STYLE

1. Find a place in paragraph two where the author uses understatement. What does this device say about her tone? Is this usage confined to her introduction, or does she carry this tone throughout the piece?
2. What role does fantasy play in this essay? Find the times the author drifts into fantasy. What role might fantasy play on the jobs of low-income workers? How can you relate these ideas to the author's experiment as a whole?
3. "Nickel and Dimed" is a narration about a part of one specific woman's life, but it has widespread significance. What are some of the ways the author makes this more than just the story of a single individual? Where in the essay did you go to support your answer?
4. Ehrenreich frequently uses footnotes during this piece. What types of information do they convey? What might they have done to the flow of her narrative if she incorporated this information into the body of the essay?
5. Rate the effectiveness of the title. To what saying does the main title refer? How can you relate this to the author's view of low-wage jobs in the U.S.? What do you make of the use of parentheses in the subtitle?

1. Describe the worst job you ever had. How long did you work at it? Did any memories flash up when you were doing your reading? What are you thinking about now?
2. How "readable" was this essay for you? Explain how easy or difficult it was to read and how it affected your experience of the piece.

SUGGESTIONS FOR SUSTAINED WRITING

1. What should the minimum wage be in the U.S.? For what purpose should such a standard be adopted? Should it be scalable, depending upon the cost of living in the area involved? Who should decide these things?
2. Compare and contrast the demands that welfare mothers have upon them and those that the author faces in her life and in her experiment. Do any of your conclusions question her experimental method? Explain.

FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

Find a directory or site online that deals with low-income wage earner issues. Pick one issue that interests you and study it. What is the issue? How does it affect wage earners? What legislative attempts have been made to address this issue? What still needs to be done?

WEB CONNECTION

Did you know that this author writes more than nonfiction? This page contains a brief review of Ehrenreich's novel Kipper's Game. Does the subject matter of this novel fit in easily with this writer's other work?

LINKS

Biographical

Here is a good start page from Rutgers University with a brief bio, a photo, some links, and some questions. It's a good place to start your internet research about Ehrenreich.

Here is the author's profile from The Nation, a magazine to which she's a regular contributor. How is this biographical information different from that given above? In terms of tone?

Here is Ehrenreich's entry at Infoplease.com. How is this entry different from the information above? Do you consider it trustworthy? Why or why not?

Bibliographical

This is a Time magazine article by Ehrenreich about the 2000 Presidential election, in which she explains why she voted for Ralph Nader.

Here's a Salon essay she wrote about Monica Lewinsky, Bill Clinton, and the impeachment process.

Click here to hear a speech in RealAudio about the media by Ehrenreich. Now that you know some of Ehrenreich's writing, what do you think of her speaking? Did she sound about the way you imagined?

Cultural

Interested in putting this author's work into a cultural context? Here are some feminism and women's literature links. How can this information help you in your writing about Ehrenreich?

This is the homepage of the Democratic Socialists of America. Can you find a link between Ehrenreich and this organization?

Here is a review of Ehrenreich's book, Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War. Does this subject matter surprise you, given what you know of this author's work?