​Is low-wage work still a 'dictatorship'? A look at Ehrenreich's 2001 findings

By Bharat Dogra  

At a time when debates over affordability and urban poverty have re-energized working-class mobilization in the USA, the writings of the late Barbara Ehrenreich have acquired a chilling new relevance.

The increasing difficulty faced by working people in many American cities to meet their essential needs is belatedly—but necessarily—attracting attention. In this context, a book written over two decades ago, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (2001), now feels more urgent than ever.

Ehrenreich, an American author who reached a worldwide readership with over 20 books known for their courageous voice championing justice and dignity for the most vulnerable, made her most famous contribution with this investigative work.

Going Undercover to Reveal the Truth

To write Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich went undercover, concealing her identity while working a series of low-wage jobs as a shop assistant, household cleaner, and waitress. Her firsthand experience revealed a devastating truth: even with the best of efforts and working full-time, it was incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to earn enough to meet essential expenses. Furthermore, she exposed working conditions that were often injurious to health and dignity.

Drawing conclusions from her experiences, Ehrenreich quoted studies regarding affordability in late 1990s US cities. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) estimated at the time that a wage of $14 an hour was needed to provide a living wage for a family of one adult and two children. Even this figure excluded common expenses like restaurant meals, internet, and cigarettes.

The problem? Ehrenreich typically earned $7 or $8 an hour. What is more, she found available data suggesting that about 60% of American workers were earning less than the estimated living wage of $14 an hour.

A Dictatorship on the Shop Floor

The working environment itself proved to be intensely oppressive. Ehrenreich famously wrote:

“When you enter the low-wage workplace—and many of the medium wage workplaces as well—you check your civil liberties at the door, leave America and all it supposedly stands for behind, and learn to zip your lips for the duration of the shift. The consequences of this routine surrender go far beyond the issues of wage and poverty. We can hardly pride ourselves on being the world’s preeminent democracy, after all, if large numbers of citizens spend half their waking hours in what amounts, in plain terms, to a dictatorship.”

Describing the harm inflicted on health, dignity, and the ability to meet basic needs, Ehrenreich insisted that these workers were operating under emergency conditions. She urged readers to recognize this reality: “This is how we should see the poverty of so many millions of low-wage Americans—as a state of emergency.”

The Housing Subsidy Paradox

Housing remains a serious problem for the urban poor, with half or more of meager earnings often consumed by rent for whatever poor conditions can be managed.

Ehrenreich highlighted the hypocrisy in government policy by comparing her own life as a writer to the lives of the working poor. She noted that the annual housing subsidy she received as a middle-class American—over $20,000 a year in the form of a mortgage-interest deduction—“would have allowed a truly low income family to live in relative splendor.” This disparity starkly illustrates how government budgets are often biased in favor of the affluent, rather than prioritizing the fundamental needs of the poor.

Nickel and Dimed was a New York Times bestseller for a reason. As Diana Henriques wrote in a NYT appraisal, the book was “Captivating…Just promise that you’ll read this book from cover to cover.” Dorothy Gallagher, in The New York Times Book Review, praised it as “Valuable and illuminating…We have Barbara Ehrenreich to thank for bringing us the news of America’s working poor so clearly and directly, and conveying with it a deep moral outrage.”

Today, with housing costs soaring and wealth inequality expanding, that moral outrage is a torch that must be carried forward to force meaningful policy change.

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The writer is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now within a Framework of Justice, Peace and Democracy. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, A Day in 2071, Man over Machine, and Planet in Peril