Buy new:
Save with Used - Acceptable

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Follow the author
OK
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America Paperback – May 1, 2002
Purchase options and add-ons
Millions of Americans work for poverty-level wages, and one day Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that any job equals a better life. But how can anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 to $7 an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich moved from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, taking the cheapest lodgings available and accepting work as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing-home aide, and Wal-Mart salesperson. She soon discovered that even the "lowliest" occupations require exhausting mental and physical efforts. And one job is not enough; you need at least two if you intend to live indoors.
Nickel and Dimed reveals low-wage America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity -- a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate strategies for survival. Instantly acclaimed for its insight, humor, and passion, this book is changing the way America perceives its working poor.
- Print length240 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHolt Paperbacks
- Publication dateMay 1, 2002
- Dimensions5.92 x 0.69 x 7.78 inches
- ISBN-109780805063899
- ISBN-13978-0805063899
- Lexile measure1340L
Discover the latest buzz-worthy books, from mysteries and romance to humor and nonfiction. Explore more
Frequently bought together

Similar items that ship from close to you
- In poverty, as in certain propositions in physics, starting conditions are everything.Highlighted by 1,387 Kindle readers
- Maybe, it occurs to me, I’m getting a tiny glimpse of what it would be like to be black.Highlighted by 1,234 Kindle readers
- The first thing I discovered is that no job, no matter how lowly, is truly “unskilled.”Highlighted by 876 Kindle readers
Editorial Reviews
From The New Yorker
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker
Review
--Diana Henriques, The New York Times [Business Section]
"Jarring, full of riveting grit . . . This book is already unforgettable."
--Susannah Meadows, Newsweek
"Angry, amusing . . . An in-your-face expose."
--Anne Colamosca, Business Week
"With grace and wit, Ehrenreich discovers . . . the irony of being nickel and dimed during unprecedented prosperity."
--Eileen Boris, The Boston Globe
"Ehrenreich is a superb and relaxed stylist [with] a tremendous sense of rueful humor."
--Stephen Metcalf, Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Barbara Ehrenreich . . . is our premier reporter of the underside of capitalism."
--Dorothy Gallagher, The New York Times Book
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Product details
- ASIN : 0805063897
- Publisher : Holt Paperbacks
- Publication date : May 1, 2002
- Language : English
- Print length : 240 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9780805063899
- ISBN-13 : 978-0805063899
- Item Weight : 8 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.92 x 0.69 x 7.78 inches
- Lexile measure : 1340L
- Best Sellers Rank: #356,675 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3 in Labor & Industrial Economic Relations (Books)
- #7 in Poverty
- #114 in Economic Conditions (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

BARBARA EHRENREICH is the author of fourteen books, including the bestselling Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch. She lives in Virginia, USA.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book thought-provoking and well-written, with a simple style that makes it easy to read. They appreciate its authenticity based on hard facts, and one customer notes how it provides a realistic portrayal of blue-collar life. The book's humor is appreciated, and customers consider it worth the price. However, the author's attitude receives criticism for being condescending.
AI Generated from the text of customer reviews
Select to learn more
Customers find the book highly readable, describing it as thought-provoking and interesting.
"...Great book, great assignment from the high school teachers and well worth the time reading." Read more
"...The mark of a good book is the way ideas and thoughts keep coming back to you in odd moments and they are directly related to what you just took in..." Read more
"This book was a great read, and a good look into the life of people who work low-wage jobs to get by in the day to day life...." Read more
"...It's a great book. Heart breaking and eye opening if you haven't lived any of it. Her humour still shines through as well. Highly recommend." Read more
Customers praise the writing style of the book, describing it as simple and easy to read, with one customer noting it reads like a diary.
"Well written, meaningful book. She lived a life that so many people are still living." Read more
"This book is a fairly easy and quick read that can easily enlighten an individual with little knowledge about the working poor like myself on their..." Read more
"...This book is not policy analysis but it is very well written and gives the reader insights into the daily struggle for survival for the working poor...." Read more
"...It seemed as I read through the pages that every word was dripping with unrealized insincerity, superiority and a lack of genuine compassion...." Read more
Customers find the book worth its price, with one mentioning it provides a short trip into the minimum wage world, while another notes it effectively addresses the issue of low wages.
"Good price for the book compares to bookstores" Read more
"Good Buy..." Read more
"...Mainly, just having good food to eat every day, and being able to pay for medical, or dental, care whenever I need it is a true luxury that we all..." Read more
"...Availability of affordable housing is her major problem during her economic experiment...." Read more
Customers appreciate the authenticity of the book, noting it is based on hard facts and includes real-life examples.
"...Accessible, authentic, and thorough. A book that has real potential to inspire change...." Read more
"...This book provided some poignant and real life examples about the world of low-wage work, using instances that are glossed over in many facets of..." Read more
"...the book could have been half its length and still been entirely convincing and alarming." Read more
"This book is not an objective piece of journalism...." Read more
Customers appreciate the book's appearance, describing it as bold and fantastic in shape, with one customer noting its realistic portrayal of blue-collar life.
"...The book itself I purchased was in great shape and very fast shipping." Read more
"...Ehrenreich's writing is fresh and enjoyable to read, her voice bold and unapologetic...." Read more
"...3. The force of her message. There was something subtle and understated, or shall we say less than shrill, about the way she presents her case,..." Read more
"I heartily recommend this book as a sobering and engaging look at the trials and travails of low-income workers in America...." Read more
Customers enjoy the book's humor, finding it witty and nice to read, with one customer noting how the author engages readers with her intelligence and wit.
"Smart, Funny, and Tragically Accurate..." Read more
"...'s writing is fresh and enjoyable to read, her voice bold and unapologetic...." Read more
"...2. Her sense of humor. Surprisingly, there is quite a bit of humor in this book and I found myself laughing out loud quite a few times...." Read more
"...Eminently readable (I finished in just under a day), Ehrenreich handles with humor, insight, and not a few footnotes the problems our economic..." Read more
Customers find the author's attitude condescending and mean-spirited throughout the book.
"Honestly, the author was just too judgmental and patronizing...." Read more
"...My only complaint is that this author at times comes across as condescending, and it’s clear she has come from even more privilege than me." Read more
"...enjoyed this book even though I became angry at the lack of social justice in our society. Go Barbara Go!" Read more
"...This kind of hypocrisy, the critique of individuals based on stereotypes in contrast with the far reaching idealistic ideas of equality and the..." Read more
Reviews with images

Good read
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews. Please reload the page.
- Reviewed in the United States on September 21, 2013What can I say about this book? When I started reading it I was as appalled and shocked with the introduction as one might expect, she is going to give up her PH.D high salary lifestyle to go "mingle" with the minimum wage world so she can try to find some secret economy about the poor and than write a book about it? Sounded like a complete waste of time nonetheless demeaning like the poor was s disease that she was going to do research on. However as I got further into the book I knew that my concepts were going to change about her.The longer you stare into the abyss the longer it stares back at you, in chapter 1 of Nickel and Dimed Barbara Ehrenreich author of the book was preparing to set off into an adventure that eventually turns a bit out of hand. Ehrenreich in need of a minimum wage job to start off everything had filled out 22 applicants for jobs and none of them called back leaving the impression that the employers simply put in the advertisement solely as a "filler" to replace the ones that are going to quit or get fired. Having read this first chapter I could tell already this journey of Ehrenreich is going to be a lot more grueling than she signed up for, seeing as how they treat their employees as expendable workers with no skills. Ehrenreich in return had no choice but to accept a job as a waitress, a job that she didn't want to take seeing as how she already was one when she was 18 and did not much enjoy the job, however Ehrenreich soon realizes that the job was more than a job and she soon felt responsible for delivering the food to the customers in need and soon starts to bond with them in her workplace. The accountability for the customers Ehrenreich served soon escalated as she picked up the tab for a customer who spent most of his money on dental surgery wanting them to be happy, Ehrenreich states ""If you seek happiness for yourself you will never find it. Only when you seek happiness for others will it come to you", (20). It's as though this job is starting to grow on her and becoming a part of her very nature and instilling morals in her. After reading the first chapter of this book I am appalled and amazed at this, It reinforces everything of my ideals and philosophy as I believe that working hard and doing manual labor instills great morals and responsibility into a person and trains that person to appreciate things in their life more, not less. Ehrenreich soon finds out that there is no secret economy to the poor and their whole life is horrifying compared to her old one and even now she is well-off than most of her co-workers who are living in trailer parks or in their cars in front of a parking lot. What endows me with adrenaline even more was reading that when Ehrenreich tried to return to her old life to catch up on things, she soon realized she wasn't the same person anymore, the foreshadowing of her life that has been flipped is amazing. How I feel is that these workers are like everyday people and once you get to know them they become a part of you just like everybody else. In the end of all of this Ehrenreich only felt failure, she states "I am in a position to realize, for the first time in many years, that the tear ducts are still there and still capable of doing their job", (48) the thought going through her mind as she quitted both her jobs in a semi-dramatic fashion and soon came into the realization that she was human just as much as anybody else.
- Jamie Huynh Review
- Reviewed in the United States on March 19, 2004Format: PaperbackVerified PurchaseI thought this book was absolutely fantastic. I found it an easy, five-hour read of 221 pages. The negative reviews of this book, I believe, are coming from two sorts of people. First are those who wish the book to be something it is not. This book is NOT attempt to be a serious, sociological study. It is only what its author purports it to be-the experiences of ONE reporter, making three reasonable attempts, in three vastly different locales, to live at a minimally acceptable standard on the salaries offered in low-wage service positions.
Other criticisms of this book came from those who felt the author was a left-wing extremist, against the rich, advocating transfer payments from rich to poor. A few people ranted and raved, in their reviews, about what "solutions" she was advocating. I think these people didn't read very carefully. I did not find her advocating any solutions at ALL, only bringing up the dilemmas, and posing questions that we should ALL be posing. But to accuse the author of advocating things which she did not say, is akin to putting words in her mouth, by some people who literally feel threatened by anyone who asks the questions she poses!
The most overwhelming feeling I got from reading her book was of HOW RICH I AM (and I'm an American living in a third-world country)! Anyone who is feeling the least bit sorry for themselves in this life should read this book, and they will IMMEDIATELY feel better. Mainly, just having good food to eat every day, and being able to pay for medical, or dental, care whenever I need it is a true luxury that we all forget about, as well as having a comfortable roof over my head. We are all guilty of taking these things so much for granted, when we have them.
The most important conclusion the author draws in this book is that low-wage jobs are so far out-of-whack with the costs of housing, and that this is what is just killing people, and keeping them barely surviving. She shows how this situation has gotten worse in recent years. It is certainly true that most people in low-wage jobs are working two jobs to make ends meet. I know this from personal experience. My husband, a foreign immigrant to America for a time, worked in a hotel cleaning rooms. He was the ONLY person who did not go to a second job at the end of an 8-hour shift (as we fortunately didn't NEED him to do that). What this author, and most Americans, may not realize however, is that this is NOT just an AMERICAN problem. It is true that the more socialistic countries in Europe "distribute the wealth" to lower-income persons. But they are about the ONLY countries in the world that do (Canada may also). In MOST countries of the world, salaries are FAR out-of-whack with housing costs. And the disparity if FAR worse than in America. But there is one difference in America. America has a lot of laws making it illegal to have too many people living in an apartment, for example. You aren't allowed to have more people that two in an apartment for each bedroom. In third-world countries, these restrictions don't exist. So you could have ten people crowding into a one-bedroom apartment. And believe me, they sometimes do. It's the only way to make ends meet, for a lot of people. This is a problem that has been with us since the world began, and will continue. I don't have a solution. I am not rich. But I FELT SO RICH reading this book. This book will help any person to really freshly appreciate what they do have. I HIGHLY recommend it to EVERYONE.
Top reviews from other countries
-
Harry PolmanReviewed in Germany on November 1, 2022
5.0 out of 5 stars Stuivers en dubbeltjes van Barbara Ehrenreich
De auteur, Barbara Ehrenreich, duikt in de Amerikaanse economie onder daar waar de uurlonen minimaal zijn. Zij probeert uit te vinden of het mogelijk is met dit soort uurloon bij een 40-uursbaan zelfstandig te kunnen leven zonder in geldnood te komen. Tijdens haar onderduik spreekt ze met tijdelijke collega's en managers. Regelmatig loopt zij tegen een muur op wanneer het einde van de maand in zicht komt. huren zijn hoog en een eigen huis is hebben is te duur. Velen zijn dus veroordeeld tot het wonen in motels en pensions waar het leven geen pretje is. Zeker als je ook nog kinderen hebt. Het boek is met vaart geschreven en geeft een goede inkijk in de omstandigheden van de laagst betaalden.
- DennisReviewed in Canada on August 11, 2013
5.0 out of 5 stars Eye-opening without being alarmist
Format: PaperbackVerified PurchaseToo often writers of political/social commentary expect their readers to accept anecdotal evidence as though it were a series objectively quantified observations. In my opinion, Ehrenreich avoids this trap nicely. She blends both personal experience and research, with an inside look at what it means to be a member of the working poor in America. Her personal views are apparent but she does not attempt hide them.
She walks the reader through days in life of everyone from a maid to a wal-mart greeter. In every case, the reader is a brief glimpse into the incredible struggle that many hardworking individuals face when trying to lift themselves off the bottom rung of society's ladder.
For anyone interested in learning more about the incredible struggles of hardworking, low-wage members of our society Nickel and Dimed is a must read.
- Amrita SureshReviewed in India on September 6, 2015
5.0 out of 5 stars A Salute!
I very rarely write a review, the minute I finish reading a book, yet this particular master piece simply took my breath away! I want to thank the authoress for actually going under cover as a low wage worker in the US, just to show to the world just how difficult it is for the blue collar hardworking souls to survive! It's truly changed my perspective for life! A must read, indeed!
-
Esther GarcíaReviewed in Spain on July 30, 2020
5.0 out of 5 stars Como siempre, un libro indispensable de su autora
Un estudio de la vida dura de las camareras y limpiadoras realizado por una magnífica escritora que fue capaz de vivir como ellas y con ellas
- CharlesReviewed in the United Kingdom on February 19, 2013
5.0 out of 5 stars Depressing But Importand Read
Both England and America have a phenomena know as the working poor, these are people that work one or more jobs yet still cannot make ends meet.
This book was written by a journalist investigating what's it like to be a low pay worker in America.
The author took various low paying jobs and tried to survive on the wages and had a very tough time.
Jobs such as cleaning turn out to be very demanding physically leaving the workers with permanent damage to their bodys. The cleaning company charged $25 per person hour but only pays the worker $6.65 per hour.
The high cost of housing and low pay means workers cannot just give up their current job and look for another as they will not be able to pay their rent while looking for a job.
Other low pay workers cannot afford health care to fix heath problems, the health problems then cause them to lose their jobs and get even poorer.
Poor public transport in many parts of America means if you cannot afford a car you choice of jobs is limited to your local area only making the choice of work for the poor worse.
It comes obvious that been poor in America actually traps people when vital needs such as health care and transportation are only for people that can afford it. No wonder social mobility in America is so bad and the poor have decreased in wealth in the last 30 years while the rich have gotten even richer.
2 people found this helpfulReport