Nickel and Dimed

NICKEL AND DIMED: ON (NOT) GETTING BY IN AMERICA: Barbara Ehrenreich: Metropolitan Books: Nonfiction: 221 pgs.

With some 12 million women being pushed into the labor market by welfare reform, she decided to do some good old-fashioned journalism and find out just how they were going to survive on the wages of the unskilled--at $6 to $7 an hour, only half of what is considered a living wage. So she did what millions of Americans do, she looked for a job and a place to live, worked that job, and tried to make ends meet. She worked as a waitress in Key West, Fla., as a cleaning woman and a nursing home aide in Portland, Maine, and in a WalMart in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Delivering a fast read that's both sobering and sassy, she gives readers pause about those caught in the economy's undertow, even in good times, and how hard work can fail to live up to its reputation as the ticket out of poverty.

RP