{"product_id":"nickel-and-dimed-on-not-getting-by-in-america-20th-anniversary-edition","title":"Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (20th Anniversary Edition)","description":"The New York Times Bestseller\u003cbr\u003eALA Alex Award Winner\u003cbr\u003eChristopher Award Winner\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Captivating . . . promise that you will read this explosive little book cover to cover and pass it on to all your friends and relatives.”\u003cbr\u003e―The New York Times\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe New York Times bestselling work of undercover reportage from our sharpest and most original social critic, with a new foreword by Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMillions of Americans work full time, year round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job―any job―can be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 an hour?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo find out, Ehrenreich left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered. Moving from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, she worked as a waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing-home aide, and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. She lived in trailer parks and crumbling residential motels. Very quickly, she discovered that no job is truly \"unskilled,\" that even the lowliest occupations require exhausting mental and muscular effort. She also learned that one job is not enough; you need at least two if you intend to live indoors.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNickel and Dimed reveals low-rent America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity―a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate stratagems for survival. Read it for the smoldering clarity of Ehrenreich's perspective and for a rare view of how \"prosperity\" looks from the bottom. And now, in a new foreword, Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, explains why, twenty years on in America, Nickel and Dimed is more relevant than ever.","brand":"Macmillan","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47822842888418,"sku":"MTO-MACMILLAN-2026-05-22-8.55-436","price":31.69,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0569\/9898\/5881\/files\/book_435_YT4v0nkOE.jpg?v=1779443520","url":"https:\/\/layitflat.com\/products\/nickel-and-dimed-on-not-getting-by-in-america-20th-anniversary-edition","provider":"Lay it Flat Publishing Group","version":"1.0","type":"link"}