All about "Nickle and Dimed"

Although we ended up with a small group anyways, we had a great discussion last Thursday about the book "Nickle and Dimed". Overall, this book was very well recieved, largely due to the author's very personal engagement in the subject matter. It's one thing to criticise or comment on the experience of the working poor, and yet another to actually live it.

Things we liked about Nickle and Dimed:

• we appreciated the author's honesty and the fact that she tackled these minimum wage jobs. She really worked hard at these jobs and recognized the fact that a fancy education was no advantage when long hard hours are required.
• her balanced view of unions, despite her attempts at "rabble rousing" activities in her last job
• how the book made us aware of a whole different kind of poverty... the kind that offers very little hope
• how blessed we are to have our large extended families and caring Christian communities as a social support network and as a financial safety net. Many of the people we meet in this book feel so alone in their struggles.
• Chandra did a little bit of personal research into employee satisfaction at Walmart in Canada, and was pleased to report that the situation is much more encouraging locally! Maybe she could share that story with us?

Things we didn't like about Nickle and Dimed:

• a few incidences of rough/coarse language
• a few anti-Christian comments
• some of us thought that if we actually met Barbara Enhenriech, we wouldn't really like her. She was sharp, sarcastic and could come across as quite cold.

We would recommend this book to:

• anyone who needs an eye opener to the difficulties of the working poor. We all felt far more compassionate after we read this book.