Review Of Serving Americ Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel And Dimed

Serving America: Two Tales of Survival Franklin D. Roosevelt famously said, “No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in the country.” (1933, Statement on National Industrial Recovery Act). More than eighty years later, the idea of a “living wage” is still a politically decisive issue—an issue that many Americans feel needs to be addressed. In her 2001 bestseller, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, Barbara Ehrenreich asks the question, “How does anyone live on the wages available to the unskilled?” (1). Ehrenreich, a successful journalist with a Ph.D. in Biology, concludes the only way to uncover the truth is to dive in to the low-wage workforce herself,

As a waitress at the Hearthside in Key West, she cites the constant surveillance by management, “whose job it was to monitor my behavior for signs of sloth, theft, drug abuse or worse” (22). In addition, managers are allowed to sit down and relax, whereas servers are expected to utilize their downtime appropriately by completing tedious tasks. As Ehrenreich states, “You start dragging out each little chore, because if the manager on duty catches you in an idle moment he will give you something far nastier to do” (22). She learns this the hard way when she is assigned to vacuum the entire floor on her knees with a broken vacuum, a chore Ehrenreich finds demeaning and physically exhausting

The tray carrying, for example, reignites an old back injury. Adding to her pain and stress of the job is Jerry’s’ lack of a break policy. Ehrenreich’s job is “to move orders from tables to kitchen and then trays from kitchen to tables”, only sitting to pee (35). Despite being physically active and in good health, Ehrenreich is a woman in her 50s and her agility is tested on her final night at Jerry’s. Describing it as “the perfect storm” (46), all of her tables fill up at once with demanding customers. Ehrenreich makes every attempt to satisfy the hungry crowd, but quickly reaches her breaking