In Chapter Two of her book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, author Barbara Ehrenreich relates her experiences attempting to survive on low-wage employment in the state of Maine. To do this, she took a bus into town and rented a room at the local Motel 6 with only her laptop computer (essential for recording her experiences in the process of writing this book), a suitcase with a few changes of clothes and essential toiletries and $1000 to survive on until she can find a job. Although she admits that her sudden launch into a completely unfamiliar town is not the typical type of action most people might undertake willingly, it is also noted that for the very poor, this type of scenario occurs all too often and, it is not noted, usually omits the part about having $1000 in her pocket with which to make a new start. By examining her working experiences in Maine closely, it is possible to extrapolate information about the common conditions of people living in these conditions everywhere in the country, forcing one to rethink the position of the low-wage worker and hope something better might be worked out before long.
In Maine, Ehrenreich managed to secure employment at two different places within days of her arrival in Portland. It was necessary to get two jobs, she said, because of the cost of living expenses. The room that she eventually gained is located at least 30 minutes away from the city proper because everything available in town is at least $1,000 per month, which would take all the money she has in hand, not counting any security deposits. After some searching, she eventually finds a small efficiency apartment for $120 per week with a $100 security deposit required. In her search for employment, she discovers that all the low-wage jobs available continue to ask her to sell herself to the company at the rate of $6 or $7 per hour, meaning that her rent alone will require approximately half of her weekly income. The job with The Maids is described as “$5 to $6 an hour for what this lady freely admits is heavy labor with a high risk of repetitive-stress injuries” (60). Ehrenreich is offered $6.75/hour with the threat of reduction of income should she fail to show up for a day. In order to be sure she can pay her bills, Ehrenreich also takes a job for $7/hour with a nursing home on the weekends. For transportation, she is reduced to what she terms a Rent-a-Wreck, but never mentions the actual price of this wreck, and utilities are presumably an additional expense as well, given that she later mentions her use of water in her shower as an extravagance she has earned. While she is provided with a uniform for one of her positions, she is allowed to wear her own clothing for her work at the nursing home while food expenses are kept to a minimum by eating homemade sandwiches for lunches or eating left-over food from her nursing home job on the weekends. This is still better than the food she observes many of her co-workers eating, though, as they usually do not have the money available to eat anything more nutritious than a half a bag of chips or a simple soda as a drink.
In each of these jobs, Ehrenreich describes her relationships with her fellow employees as relatively suspicious at all times. The pleasant employees were considered to be back-stabbers and not to be trusted while the others were typically so overwhelmed with attempting to deal with their own personal problems that they didn’t have time to involve themselves with others. While these relationships seem to remain strictly at a barely acquaintanceship level, there is a definite adversarial relationship held with her boss at the maid service in which the boss holds the employees responsible for things outside of their control. For example, when the maids are not able to find a key, Ehrenreich explains, “When owners forget we are coming, he [Ted] explains at one of our morning send-off meetings, it ‘means something,’ like that they’re dissatisfied and too passive-aggressive to tell us” (86). Even should this be the case, the restrictive way in which she is instructed to clean would serve as a viable justification for this unhappiness, not necessarily the physical labor of the maids themselves. Through all of this, it is seen that no one particularly likes their job, and most suffer long-term injuries from the physical toil and relentless pressure of their jobs, but that they don’t have time or inclination to try searching for something better. According to Ehrenreich, some even fail to seek new employment because they can’t afford the break in paychecks.
Having had a small taste of this world as a clerk in a convenience store, I knew the situation had to be bad for folks trying to earn their own living without the help of parents or anyone, but this book really brought this out to a much higher degree. It is impossible not to look around and see just how many people in society are probably living lives just like those described by Ehrenreich. After reading this chapter, my impulse was to hire a maid service every day and then require the maids to sit down, put their feet up and enjoy a nice afternoon meal, leaving without having cleaned up a thing. If prosperity is built off of such suffering, as it seems to be when comparing the numbers of low-wage earners around me, I am ashamed of it. In discussing what is required to earn a ‘living wage’, many things not commonly taken into account must be considered, such as the actual price of available, tenant-able housing as compared to the actual wages being paid just as the human cost of working 7 days a week and still not able to afford food must be subtracted from the final wages received.
Works Cited
Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimes: On (Not) Getting By in America. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2001.