Focus 580; Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

This morning in the second hour of the program we'll be talking with journalist Barbara Ehrenreich. She's written a lot about economic dislocation in America and a couple of years ago in 1998 she set out to answer this question how is it that people manage to make ends meet on the kind of wages that are available to unskilled workers and rather than going out and interviewing people who are trying to do this she decided to try and do it for herself. And she spent time in three different places in Florida where she lived in Maine and in Minnesota working as a waitress a hotel maid a sales clerk at a Wal-Mart. Seeing In fact if she could manage to live on the wages that these jobs paid and the bottom line answer to the question is well no not really and not if you want to. Not unless you want to be sleeping in your car. And she's written about this on account of her experiences and a recently published book which is titled nickel and dimed on not getting by in America it's published by Metropolitan Books and she's joining us this

morning by telephone to talk about the book and her experiences. And your question certainly are welcome. The number if you're here in Champaign-Urbana where we are 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We also have a toll free line that's good anywhere that you can hear us and that's a hundred to two. 2 9 4 5 5. So at any point you can give us a call and join the conversation we just ask people to try to be brief so we can keep things moving along but anyone is welcome to call. Our guest is the author of a number of books including blood writes the worst years of our lives. Fear of falling a book that was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award and eight others she's also a frequent contributor to publications including time Harper's The New Republic the nation the New York Times Magazine. And as I said she's joining us this morning by telephone. Ms Ehrenreich Hello. Hi good to be with you Dave. Well thanks very much for talking with us. Here you did something in doing this book that I

think probably not very many journalists do anymore if they ever did that is I guess it's what we call participant observation that is rather the then. Watching somebody do something or talk with somebody about their experiences you decided you would go out and try yourself. What led you to actually decide to try and live this way yourself. Well there is a tradition of journalism during a fairly 20th century had a lot of examples of journalists going out working in factories you know with doing whatever and writing about it. That however was not my idea. Here I had just been talking to a magazine editor the editor of Harper's about you know what's the math the math of it. So many welfare reform that I clicked in I was talking to in 1998 as we were saying you know how is it possible that people are going to be women are going to be able to leave welfare and support their families on the wages available out there. Cantor level workers I was saying you know the math doesn't look too good but everybody seems to

believe it's possible. And then I said this may have been a big mistake I said you know somebody should go out there and do the old fashioned kind of journalism try for themselves and write about that. Anyway he said you. There I was stuck with the assignment from hell. I thought first and as a freelancer you don't say no. Well and certainly reading about your experiences I think one would not want to minimize just how difficult an assignment this was for a variety of reasons. Nabi chief among them just how the fact that you were going out there you were getting a real job you were doing the work and that it was physically demanding let alone the whole question of how it is that you tried to indeed live on what it was they were going to pay you. Yeah I mean there were really two problems. One was doing the work and I

was challenge by all of these jobs. Got a couple of mine was also made with a house cleaning service and a nursing home aide. But every job required learning a lot of stuff and learning it very quickly. I found I really even though I you know I'm a journalist I have a Ph.D. I thought this was not an easy and physically also very exhausting all of these were jobs that you on your feet bending lifting carrying etc for hours on end. So that was that was hard. But even harder I think was you know was the making ends meet. Part I did give myself sort of a b or a B-plus for doing the job pretty well and I'm kind of proud I screwed up some times and that's all those embarrassing stories are in the book but it basically did pretty well but I didn't do so well at you know figure out how to survive on this kind of money. I can average $7 an hour and I should

emphasize as well above the national minimum wage. And fact as a single you know it's just one person doing this. I was even above the poverty level. So you know it was quite dismaying that it was so hard to make ends meet. And you had had you had an advantage over a lot of other people that is the only person you had to take care of was yourself. I also had a car I was at a rent a wreck and I didn't count the rental price. You know the rental fees I didn't deduct that from my wages I just said well I'm going to be a low income person with a car here otherwise it would be a long long story about waiting for buses. So I had these advantages also white and English speaking. And I think that does make a difference in what kind of jobs you get offered. Possibly a real advantage and something that some of these cases. But the part I I was really not prepared for

was the cost of housing. I sort of assume that in every case I would get you know a little efficiency apartment it would be minimal but pleasant enough and it would cost about 500 a month. That was my. Assumption as I started out I did it start out with such a place but it was at such a distance from where the jobs were that I finally decided it was too expensive in the gas part was too expensive. Then I was plunged into this in a really discouraging housing market. And in Maine and in Minnesota I couldn't find any apartment. I mean there were just none. Renting for less than say $800 a month. Zero. So why did what a lot of low income people do and that is stayed in residential motels paying by the week. And

those are those are the really expensive and. Well and what does that cost. Would that go. That would cost you one of them. Fortunately was about a hundred and twenty dollars a week. Still that's quite a bit of money on a monthly basis for one tiny room with a kitchenette in that case. But I you know I thought that was a pretty good deal. Then the in the Twin Cities area the only one. Only place I could find was a residential low talent. Two hundred fifty dollars a week which was you know course impossible. And also that place had no kitchen that no microwave no fridge so another expense was that I had to then get all my food at convenience stores and fast food restaurants. Which is now expensive as well as not very yummy and not very healthy and well that was the least of my concerns.

Let's talk a little bit more about the the experience of as you started out in your hometown and started out working as a waitress. And I got the. And it wasn't very long before you discovered that that that wasn't going to cut it and so you actually had to get a second job so you were working two waitressing jobs or working at one place and then going to another place and doing the same thing. Yeah. Not possible. I I didn't realize that a lot of the other people I was working with had two jobs so I thought OK that's what I have to do. But I think the trick is you can't have two. It's hard to have two jobs that are where you're on your feet and running all the time. And I just felt you know I was I was going into a state of meltdown by the end of the second shift and one day was a profit and this may seem like a trivial problem but it's the kind of thing that looms very large that you have a uniform for every job maybe just a

polo shirt and slacks. But it has to be. They usually only give you one. And you have to somehow manage to launder that in between these shifts and I thought. You know what do I do that you know I hate to think what you do if you're a parrot like a single parent in a situations because there would be no time just no time to be with the children. How much were you making on these jobs. I average seven dollars an hour. The lowest paid was about 660 an hour and a housecleaning job and I did get up to 750 an hour occasionally and even war as a waitress. Did you feel that you know I suppose one imagines that if this is your life and you live with the circumstances that you learn you learn tricks you learn things that the rest of us wouldn't know because we don't have to know that. Did you find that that the people that you're working with had

particular survival skills that you realized that you didn't have and that you would need if this was going to work. No alas. You know I discovered that in some ways it's more expensive to be poor than the for the reasons like I was just saying and you know if you don't have that first month's rent security deposit and so on to get into a real monthly rental apartment you'll be really ripped off in these residential motels. If you don't have a place to cook you'll be paying too much for food. So I had her not only a few paid little but you know some of the expenses are just wild here so no I didn't see that people had any great tricks. In fact what I saw was people giving up you know going without certain things like health insurance which was I should say was very often offered by the employer. But the employee contribution would be so high that that most people I talked to didn't bother

with it. You know you just if you're getting. Say fourteen hundred dollars a month. You can't afford a couple hundred dollars out of that for health insurance. So that's what I thought people going without things that I really really need it and they need staff. It seems like as you suggested maybe the big problem was if you have this kind of income finding decent housing and it sounds as if the people that you came to know that you were there were also working in these places. The way that they dealt with that was one way or another they were living with somebody else and sharing those expenses they were living with the boyfriend they were living with somebody else and that was the way one of the things that they could do to try to get. By you know not everybody has a boyfriend or a spouse or a grown child to pitch in with the rent and I did work alongside some people who turned out to be homeless. You

know who were sleeping in their van in one case a pickup truck in another case and I thought it was very odd and interesting that they didn't describe themselves as homeless because they had that vehicle to sleep in because of that. That was considered a step above you know slipping in the streets of course. And one place I worked. The manager very kindly let one of my fellow workers park her pickup truck in the parking lot that went with this restaurant which she considered a great benefit because better to be a parking lot that had the occasional security guard patrolling it at night and to be just on the street and it seemed so sad to me that that's when you know an American worker regards that as a benefit. You know things have really Kahan pretty far downhill.

It's one of the things that's striking about these folks in this situation is just how I'm sure you start to feel stuck because it's difficult to find other work this may be the best work that you can find you can't afford to lose that job so you end up putting up with a lot of stuff that may be a lot of the rest of us just wouldn't do. Wouldn't put up with because we know we don't have to but they do. Yeah I think what they put up with in the in the low wage work place is a lot of. Well I would say mistreatment or bad treatment on the part of management. The all the way from just lack of appreciation to things that look to me fairly abusive like the kind of harassment the. That was it that was for me the hardest thing the hardest thing to adjust to. You know as a grown woman you know who

had you know a career in journalism and everything and if you had a certain amount of self-esteem I should think to suddenly be put in these situations where you could I was some time. Other people certainly were yelled at with somebody yelling a couple inches from your nose. Punished for you know by having being made to do really unpleasant tasks for some infraction or imagined infraction and having to submit to all kinds of rules of the reasoning for which I cannot imagine like rules such as no chatting with your fellow workers. You know that you could be disciplined if you were caught talking about anything that was not immediately related to the work at hand. I say Of course you have to kind of sneak to have a normal human interaction. You know so that that sort of thing I think wears people down.

And that was just because the management thought that anything that was not directly related to the job was that you were you were wasting their time. And they said well we're not paying you to stand around and socialize with the coworkers we're paying you to get those plates out of the kitchen in and out there into the dining room so that we can get those people fed and get out of here so we can get somebody else in that table. Well nobody ever chatted when there were things to that were things done. It's when you were maybe working next to somebody and you know doing something that didn't require. You know that you could you were you could have a chat while you were doing it or they were a little bit of down time. Like at Wal-Mart there was our manager for our department said there was to be no talking and that was how he put it no talking. And so we would kind of meet behind. You know a stack of clothing or racks or shelves you know to to exchange a few words very often about things that were

going on at work. I you know I sort of I have I don't know what goes through management's mind but I think maybe they worry that if people could freely talk if you had the right to free speech and we supposedly have in the rest of our lives that we might do more to exchange some grievances so they'd be conspiring. Yeah. Our guest this morning I should introduce Again our guest this morning is journalist Barbara Ehrenreich and we're talking about her newest book which is titled nickel and dimed on not getting by in America published by Metropolitan Books which is a result of her experiences and this was back in 1998 as we explained in 1998 to 2000 apart. Over a period that I completed this research so starting I guess we should do this starting in 1998 where she went out and got the best and unskilled and we want to put that in quotes I think that's one of the things you come away with this is that you think differently about that term

and how we apply it to people. But you went out there and got the best jobs that she could. And as she mentioned she worked as a waitress. She worked in the nursing home she worked in Wal-Mart and has written about the experiences in the book and needless to say you when you went to these places you didn't tell anybody who you were and the fact that you were what you were doing was collecting experience that would end up being and article and then a book. Well I wasn't really you know undercover in the classic sense I had had to use my own name and Social Security number obviously. And you know 20 apply for jobs and toward the end of every day. You know every jobber when I was about to leave the city I would tell some of the people I've gotten closer to when I was really doing it. You know why I've been working there and I was going to write about about this. It was interesting though that you note that in many cases their reaction was well does that mean you're not coming in tomorrow.

Yeah I think there was I thought people will be like made to hand and be impressed. But you know they were kind of underwhelmed. I think that's because a lot of people and all kinds of jobs consider themselves to be writers too and are writing you know writing poems or journals or even a book in the case of one woman. I'm like I got to know you know I don't a film to ever be published but it's not so odd to be a writer and I sort of have to shake people and say no no no no I'm writing about this you know this is this I'm going to. It's sort of an exposé in there. Well then I wonder I would expect that they might still feel that that would be swell for you but that as far as they were concerned in their lives it went. It would mean that there was going to going to be any big difference in their lives or with in what they do. Miss Ehrenreich. I think we've lost the guest. Maybe we'll put her on hold that we'll see if we can get set up with her again. In the meantime Actually it's we're almost at the midpoint so that would be give me a good opportunity to

introduce again that we're speaking with journalist Barbara Ehrenreich. She's the author of a number of books including fear of falling one that we talked about here on the show which was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award and eight or nine others. She's a frequent contributor to a number of publications among them time and Harper's Magazine The New Republic the nation the New York Times Magazine. She makes her home in Florida in Key West and she has written a book based on her experiences over a couple of years working in minimum wage jobs. She explains that she set out to answer this question Would it really be possible how to people manage to live on the wages that are available to unskilled workers and so she spent time in Florida where she lived in also Maine and in Minnesota working in various jobs who talk a little bit about the waitressing job. She also worked in Wal-Mart. She worked as a house

cleaner and has written all about this in her new book here in Nickel and Dimed. In America and questions are welcome back we got somebody here who will get right to in just a second here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 and toll free 800 2 2 2 9 4 5. Misery right. Yes we are I'm sorry we lost you for a moment there. Yeah. Not my fault. OK well hopefully not on our end one doesn't know any right. We have a caller to talk with so when we do that in there in Champaign on the line number one. Hello. Hi I'm really glad you dumbass because I think this is wow just against American tradition and I'm really glad that you are. A couple things I think about is here in Champaign Urbana we have a very high quality of life but we also have very high rent federally speaking and most is a very neutral administrative organization that does the median rent to start here is $600 in Champaign-Urbana and certainly most

jobs here on a pay what you were making last when you talk about entry level and I find that very frightening and I think of something that occurred a lot in the 80s when I particularly was entering the job market. And that was that large employers noticeable name brand people would not hire full time staff. I'm really surprised in fact that you were able to find full time employment. And I'd like to hear your comments on that. And I agree with you of the privileges of being middle class has quite a few benefits other than the ones people normally think of so if you could comment on that how did you find full time work and not get stuck working 3 split shifts. Thanks a lot. Well there was no trouble finding full time work actually. There are years in which I was doing this 98 to 2000. Very tight labor market but still is a very tight labor market. Everywhere there were Help wanted. You know

hiring now hiring signs so there really wasn't any problem finding a job. Employers were like begging you to work for them. The one thing they didn't seem to want to do is raise the wages enough to make that really worthwhile. On one of the I think I remember when you decided that when you were in Florida you decided you had to have the second job. You went and. We're trained there and that people weren't particularly nice and that you discovered that one of the reasons is that barely the job seems to be so grim that a lot of people after one day they just never come back. Yeah it sounds as if there's a lot of turnover in summer and it's wild and in the US these jobs like at Wal-Mart for example. It is as far as I could tell they were recruiting for something like 10 or 12 new people every single day. I don't know how many. Probably 300 or so were employed in the whole

store. I can only guess. But that's a lot of turnover. You know it is. And I I think that management just accepts that that irreverence and as was one of my Wal-Mart coworkers put it to me they'd rather just get somebody new in than really you know value the people they have. That's how she put it you know. Well that's I guess that's what I what one would imagine that that that kind of mindset would you find that kind of mindset in an era. Ploy or if that person thought well it doesn't really matter how I treat this person because I can very easily get somebody else and that there's always going to be a line of people that are be willing to have that job and so you know one person works for a few months and they leave I can always get somebody else. Yeah although I just read an interesting article recently in The Wall Street Journal said that some of the fast food places for example are beginning to realize how much money they

lose through that kind of policy because there is you know you every time you take in somebody new There is some training there's some some time it's not as efficient as having people who are good employees who really know their work and are willing to stay. So that is some of the fast food places are beginning to revise their their policy and not see labor as such a renewable resource. In the play various places that you work where the people that were in the management roles the people who were your supervisors were they doing theory much. If we talk in terms of. Their standard of living how much money they were making were they doing very much better than you were. No I don't think a whole lot better. One of them told me he was making four hundred a month. And with very long hours because management doesn't punch in Punch out for you know regular shifts and I have to work longer. So that's about $20000 a year compared to the I don't know twelve or fourteen thousand a year that his particular underlings were were making.

We have some other callers let's talk with someone here in Chicago. Our line for a lot of your your time was spent in the profit making sector. I've got some experience in as a governmental worker if this goes back 15 years working for the state of Illinois and a good percentage of the people there in the lower grades of course you're on welfare. Because the salaries were so low they were getting food stamps and that sort of thing otherwise they couldn't make it working full time for the study and for the great state of Illinois. And I'm sure this is not just limited to Illinois. Well that's a pretty sad commentary on the state of Illinois. But you know one thing is change in the last 15 years. Food it's a lot harder to get things like food stamps

big cutbacks in food stamps just through States policies that went along with welfare reform in 1996 when that was introduced. So that's it's harder to get some of the sorts of help today. Yeah. Well I'll leave it at that this much discussion might be for someone else to call. Well I think you know let's we'll continue we'll come back here locally to Urbana person here line number one. Hello. Hi yes I was wondering just about if you had observed any sort of signs of resistance among among the people you were talking to whether on a sort of a just sort of personal level of or within the company or I don't know whether any of these jobs were unionized at all or anything like that I'm just wondering if you'd care to comment on that.

As for unionized No I never came anywhere near close to a union job. Signs of resistance Well I think people have to break rules in small ways just to survive like if you're in a job that doesn't offer bathroom breaks. Although legally now they're supposed to according to Ocean. Then you've got to break a rule just for your physical survival. And now and then I saw a variety of attitudes. I mean a lot of discontent and a lot of. A lot of resentment combined though with people taking a lot of pride in their jobs. You know I never saw anybody who slacked off and didn't care to care about doing well everybody everybody did. So some in fact some of the resentment was a management would some times times appear to be getting in the way of our doing a good job that management priorities are so geared to the money and our priority might be like a Wal-Mart having to pay our department really look good

and management might just want to have all the possible inventory stuck out on the floor no matter how messy and unappealing it was. So we have a lot of that kind of feeling. And any sort of larger organization of the war or do you think it was mostly isolated and sort of individual and I didn't see this in any or any organized form. No and you know there is it's it's very hard to get organized into a union I think and I appreciate that much more having done this because now I see how easily you can be fired first for no RINO for just the most trivial reason. I've learned that the AFL the CIO estimates that about 10000 American workers are fired every year for union activity. Right now that is illegal. You can't be fired from a union activity. So they're more commonly fired on you know some other excuse like a Wal-Mart there's a rule that you can't say damn or hell or anything of that nature. And people I have read this I

didn't experience it firsthand who were involved in you know activity have been fired and then given the explanation it was because they used one of those taboo words. Right. I mean listeners in this area might be interested to know there's been a Wal-Mart going up in Savoy here which I know a lot of local unions have been even the building of the actual facility hasn't been unionized and I imagine the people who work there will have similar issues. So. Thank you very much. We'll go on again to you. Another Banna person this is line two. Hello. Yeah a couple comments couple questions come in one is that I'm sure you're right about that conspiracy theory of the way they manage their employees. But I think they also think it's like an early warning system for just the general level of compliance because what they're really worried about is that the employees don't steal and they figure if little of the little rules are broken you know maybe the next thing on the list will be

that they'll be taking inventory and then another question. Another common is that. And it would lead directly to the first question is that I would think this is exactly the kind of thing that those people who are more or less in the privileged classes wouldn't don't want to hear about you. It's true on so many levels that the there's a there's a deliberate system in place to stop the negative feedback from coming. You know I'm just disturbing certain people. And like in particular I remember reading about the huge problems in that than Colorado were with housing because you know all the waiters and everyone else and low paying jobs you know had time to live and I was just curious because I imagine no idea if it's true but I imagine you hobnob with a lot of people who might think that you know that

the way to go is totally law is a fair and you know the market is God. Has anyone offered any kind of of opinion or do you that the market could alleviate the kind of housing problems that you saw. Well the housing problems are you know that's so clearly a result of the market working very well. You know that people with money come in and that have taken over the stock housing stock that once was available to working people. And that's just kind of I mean just it's not there. And you know any more affordable housing just seems to be almost you know nonexistent in many urban areas. So that's because the market works so well where the market doesn't seem to work very well. In my opinion is in bringing up wages because if there is what employers have called a labor shortage for the last few years why don't they raise wages. Well because they don't want to you know they they will do anything to resist that.

You know anything to prevent unions from coming in and another rather quirky little management thing with. You know they'll offer strange little benefits little perks like a Walmart once a week. If you could arrange your break on the right time you could have a free donut. Given up by management you know when you're screwed. I suppose be happy with your $7 an hour with a great perk like that. So yeah I mean there is that market. It works in some ways and sometimes and sometimes it doesn't work but it doesn't work too. It certainly has been working to working people's or low income people's advantage in terms of housing. As for the theft problem you know I don't know what to say I never saw anybody steal anything or talk about stealing anything. But I certainly did find it very unpleasant to be guarded all the time as a potential thief and I don't think my coworkers like

that either. Our member when I was thinking on some MBA courses they say that the percent of stuff from retail stores is by the employees. Let me ask you the other question and eyeing up I was just listening to what you said about the using your own name and security number. I was thinking about all the trouble he had with reporting to the reporters you know hidden cameras and stuff like that. Are you saying that Wal-Mart knew your work history and still. Do. They didn't know my work history but they do with nothing. It stopped them from finding it out on application form. I said I was a divorced homemaker re-entering the workforce which is true as far as it goes I didn't you know mention the freelance part of part of my life which is how I've supported myself for years. But I this is a little bit different case than the ABC.

And if it was a Food Lion supermarkets ABC sent in reporters with hidden cameras to record the way they handled meat. And you know it's very much exposing things that would make a turnoff a consumer a lot. And I was not there. You know I was not in these jobs to say anything bad about the business in terms of how customers would view them. OK. We have just about 10 minutes left in this part of focus 580 talking with Barbara Ehrenreich about her most recent book titled nickel and dimed on not getting by in America is published by men. Books and it is indeed about her experience over spread over a couple of years. Spending time working in essentially a minimum wage jobs the kind of jobs that an unskilled person could get in in Maine in Minneapolis and in Key West where she lives and she's written about their

experiences and the challenges of trying to make do and live on what those jobs would pay three three three W I L L toll free 800 1:58 wy allow the numbers to call if you'd like to join the conversation. Here's another person in Urbana. It's Line 3. Hi I have a comment on the financial aspect. I think I heard you say that you made it on fourteen hundred dollars a month and that you couldn't make ends meet with that much money. Well I'm an international student here and I guess I make like picking on the donors. And I live alone I pay $400 and I didn't even then I managed to put $2000 in my ID and all the friends some money back home. So I think one of the issues the financial management where you learned how to spend the money you get rather than try to live beyond your means. Do you think this is one of the problems think wanted by the people who who live in

this. I mean I'm a movie buff. Well no actually I should have said fourteen thousand a year was about what I was making. Twelve hundred dollars a month. Oh ok yeah. You see I thought it would be pretty manageable too but that's because I was assuming at the outset that I would get be able to pay rents of about 500 a month. As I said that was that was just the deal breaker when I couldn't you know find places that cost that much it was very very hard. So that was that was. That may not be true in Champaign-Urbana there may be that there's there is more affordable housing. That was the toughest part. Yeah because like I know a lot of guys used to do that all of them in the country who make on the same amount of money that they do. Yet they managed to move it even though they don't have any of that. You know just thinking I'm going to graduate student myself and that gave me a certain amount of feeling of cockiness when I start. On this because I said hey you

know I've I've lived on very very little. Not only when I was a graduate student but online children were small I was starting out as a writer. I said hey I know how to do this I can make I had in my mind is going to make the big lentil stew and freeze them up in Tupperware and then I you know I can eat very cheaply I know how to do it. I think it was a surprise you know I didn't I was living in a place that I didn't have a pot I didn't have Tupperware I didn't have you know I didn't have all the sort of basic stuff that I just assume because I have in my own kitchen. And when I figured out what it would cost to buy all that stuff it would have been an investment of $25. And so that one time investment sort of held me back. You know there are a lot of things like that that did not had not occurred to me at the beginning were going to be obstacles at least in the short term. We have several of the callers here and again I appreciate the comments of last person which is keep going next will be. Paying line one hello.

Well yes. Yeah I wanted to ask our guest about the the psychological side of this. And I'm wondering because I've lived a very Spartan Lee myself in the past when about 10 years ago I was living as a starving unhappy unproductive writer on about two hundred twenty five dollars a month. And I did I did make ends meet and I was I also dropped out of college at that point. And for me it wasn't tough so much tough. You know making ends meet I mean I found ways to do things like you know getting used to oil can from a garbage can in a gas station to oil my bike chain so I would have to pay for oil you know you just learn how to do things like that. But what I found was the hardest and I don't know if I got to get some feeling for this is feeling like the the fear that this was going to be as high as you were going to go this was going to be it. You know and there was no just no respect for it it's like if you're a

freelance writer and you've published in some well-known. You know some well-known papers or magazines. You know the instant respect. And I'm wondering if in the back of your mind you always knew you had this career and so you always you never felt like a Wal-Mart employee was all you were or you were just completely interchangeable with a million other people. I'm just wondering is this what you know or think about the psychological side. Well I hope I've made myself clearly understand the question. Well I knew that and I say it right at the beginning of the book I knew I was not going to be quote experiencing poverty because I did precisely because I wouldn't have that psychological effect you're talking about. And I would I would always you know I was getting out of it in the back of my mind. No going to going back to my my own real home and career and you know good food to eat and so on. So I was not going to a you know

experience that. But you know what I I could learn I did learn from my coworkers in some cases you know they would say things like. Nobody respects us nobody cares about us. The glue comments comments like that and I could only think oh my god how sad. You know for years and years to feel that or be in a job that does a lot of people either look down on or don't even see. Yeah that's so true so true I guess that's a whole other book. OK well thank you very much. All right thing so let's see if we can quickly get one more person at least this is Urbana line. Hello I know you know what my question is related to the T. Did you encounter many sonic workers. I'm dumping their wands who barely speak English.

And your job what was their active duty to were. The conditions they were working under and how the other workers know them if you have that if you find that's a question. Well I can't say a single anything particularly different about Hispanic or Latino workers. I work in some places with quite a multinational bunch of people. Interestingly enough some of the immigrant workers in Florida now are from Eastern Europe and don't speak and getting that you know they're from Poland or the Czech Republic or somewhere and then they have Haitians. People from other parts of the Caribbean. Quite a mixture there was quite a mixture in Wal-Mart in Minnesota and you know I I think that if there was a big language barrier I couldn't I easily communicate with them right it would be it was hard to

communicate though I did try pretty hard in some cases. But no I didn't I didn't see that there was anything distinctive about any particular ethnic or ethnic group at least not in the time that I was there to find it out. Just one more question did you see an increase in comment on Latino workers. Any what I mean on an incremental one meaning I don't know more and more and more Latino workers working in there where you work I wasn't anywhere long enough to see if there was a change. I can't say that. Thank you thanks for the call. Well we're almost there but we're going to have to stop. I'm sorry we have a couple of people we can't take. When you know that you you've made it through all this experience you think been thinking about it you've written about it. What do you take away particularly if one asked the question well if we could do something on a policy level that would benefit people like those that you

worked with what would it be. Oh so many things that they've never read at the end you ask. I know I probably should have asked at the beginning I mean you know I think it's just so many things that are like an obvious like why don't we have national health insurance like other civilized nations you know and that's a big question. Why don't we do something about the housing crisis. Because as the affordable housing stock has shrunk the government responsibility toward helping people. Well income people housing is also shrunk. Why don't we have subsidized childcare to help working parents especially the single parents. Oh I could go on and on. Would it would an increase in the minimum wage particularly the kind that would be politically. Possible make very much difference. I think so. I mean even if even a little increase because in the middle way just so far beyond it just hasn't gone up and I don't got over 10 years I think you know that would that would boost things for quite people a lot of people were near the minimum

wage too. But I think also you know in the long term it only if only in the interest of democracy. But it has to become possible for people to organize into unions or whatever kind of associations they want to. And right now Management very often runs the workplace as a dictatorship where that's impossible. Well we are going to have to leave it there because we are at the end of the time and we want to say Missouri like thanks very much for giving us some of your time today and we appreciate it. My pleasure. Our guest is Barbara Ehrenreich and once again if you'd like to read the book we've been talking about it's titled nickel and dimed on not getting by in America. It's out now it's published by Metropolitan Books.