Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America by Barbara Ehrenreich This is a story of how Barbara Ehrenreich, an upper-middle class reporter, attempts to see how the lower class lives by trying to live on low-wage jobs. Although the experiment does not seem to really show what it would really be like to be lower class American, this is a good story. Ehrenreich tries working in Florida, Maine, and Minnesota, and recounts her stories about each. At the end she writes an evaluation on the entire experience. Footnotes are included throughout the book, and often appear to be the real plot. One of my problems with this book as a study is that Ehrenreich says that she did marijuana, which made it harder for her to get jobs. Smoking marijuana is not in keeping with trying to hold a job and making ends meet in a responsible fashion.
Happy reading.
