Comment

Nickel and Dimed

on (not) Getting by in America
Mar 27, 2017
My general idea of this book is Undercover Boss or Secret Millionaire, but covers the aspect of minimum wage and the working conditions. I personally wish the author would have done a little bit more research on which jobs to work at because the story has a very biased tone to it. It has some passive aggressive comments about race and religion that really was not needed in the context of the experiment. It's also less applicable because of the time period it takes place, because a lot has changed since the 90's. I wish the story would have expanded much more on the rights of it's workers and why workers need them, but it also doesn't help that it is essentially just a series of complaints. Overall, it was well written and interesting to read, on account of the insights of the author, but generally things became repetitive once they hit Maine. The concept is rather intriguing to read about, but it could almost be summed up in the TV shows mentioned earlier, because much of the detail is not needed, where it expands upon things that do not need to be, and leaves things that would be interesting to know, very brief; for example, the other workers. The majority of the experiment, even as the author says herself, was a social experiment. However, she takes little time to focus on it, and rather talks about the conditions of the workplace. It was overall a good book, but it could have been much more balanced.