Hi, Everybody!

Have you ever, at some time in your life, had to take a job that paid only minimum wage, or lower? Do you remember how you felt about this? Did you find it demeaning, or did you feel a sense of satisfaction in doing a job well, regardless of its profits? What were the attitudes of your co-workers?

Come join us and tell us all about it in this discussion of Ehrenreich’s book.! Everyone is welcome!

Lorrie

I'm next on the Waiting List at the Library so will join you as soon as Library calls me that my turn has come.

š jane›

I have the book, but have not started it yet. Almost finished with THE BLUE FLOWER.

Hey, Jane, and Mary Page! Wonderful! I haven't actually finished reading the book yet, but we still have plenty of time. Here's another interesting link that Charlie sent me that tells quite a bit about this author:

THE CONNECTION

Have either of you two ever had to work at a minimum wage job? I have, several of them, and I found some of the working conditions just as deplorable as the author says, in some cases even more so. In my particular case, what I found to be most horrendous was the attitude that employers seemed to have for their employees, a genuine lack of respect. Anyone else?

Lorrie

I think I was probably working minimum wage when I worked as a soda jerk for 6 weeks the summer before I was a High School Senior. It was a job that was hard to get, because all the kids wanted to be one in those days. Um, yum! All the ice cream sodas and milkshakes you could eat. I had fun making milk shakes of every flavor syrup we had. Hated to quit, but had to, to go on a planned vacation. There were plenty of kids on the waiting list at our local drug store!

But the job was fun. Hectic at lunch time, but really loads of fun. It was the first job, other than the occasional baby-sitting, that I had ever had. I earned $30.00 a week, and kept most of it. I really liked the pharmacist who was the store manager, and all of the folks I worked with.

Other than that, no, I have never worked a so-called "minimum wage" job.

I worked for mininum wage when my husband was drafted after having been 4-F all through college. I had a degree, but in Columbia, SC at that point, noone cared. This was late 50's and they just did not want anyone who was not southern and no army wives. Got a whole dollar an hour. However I was treated with grace and dignity and once the boss discovered I was really smart and trustworthy, they gave me more and more to do. Never got a raise, but did enjoy the work, starting as a counter person at a bowling alley and becoming the bookkeeper and money handler. I know that the waitresses and cook at the counter in the alley got less than minimum but again were proud of what they did and it showed in the service and food. However this was way back in the 50's and have no idea if that would happen today. At that point in the south, being a maid was not an option when you were white.

This really interests me so will be looking for the book at B&N. There should be some good stories from all of us about working for nothin' in the '50's and '60's. Nothin' being minimum or less! And, liking it! I do believe that we had different attitudes about such jobs. We took them out of necessity and were just glad to be taking home some little bit to help. I had several plus I worked for a baby-sitting service on some nights and weekends. Heck, I was so glad to get out of the house and away from my kids, once in awhile, I would have almost worked at anything! My husband was in college and we had to children to support. We both worked at anything and everything to keep our heads more than above water. We were GI bill students but that wasn't enough for anyone with a family. We did all kinds of different things and make those things into funny stories now! Hey, why not enjoy the looks on our kids faces when we mention some strange job that we had! Keeps them honest!

What I learned as a teenager working as a grocery clerk was that I needed an education or I'd be doing that sort of thing for the rest of my life. I didn't like that job or the pay or the hours, so it was abundantly clear to me in the early 50s that unless you learned something and trained for something, the jobs even then led to nowhere. If you didn't know how to do something that others didn't know or you had no special skills beyond those of any other 14 or 15 year old, regardless of how old you were, the jobs that were available didn't offer much hope for a future.

š jane›

I went from a well-paying job to being a full-time student at the age of 52. I realize full well that I did not become "poor" as many of our American citizens are but the small stipend I received for the seven years I was doing grad work going from a BA to a Ph.D. was a real drop-down financially. Living on macaroni 3-4 times a week became normal. I didn't see a movie for five years. I remember pulling cabbages out of the fields of nearby farmers and living solely on them for a series of days. I remember when I spent an entire month eating absolutely nothing (I am not exaggerating) but tomatoes from another field. Interestingly enough, I found that I remained healthy and lost unneeded weight during that month. Luckily, I liked tomatoes and still do.

During most of this time I had no life insurance and no health insurance. As time went on, the house became furnished with items garnered from yard and barn sales. For a number of months we were on food stamps. Even after I received my doctorate but had not yet gotten a job, I worked as clerical help for the American Heart Association and as a typist for the Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse. I'll bet I was the only typist with a doctorate they ever had.

I repeat -- I did this voluntarily and knew I was still better off than millions across America but it did give me a taste of what poverty was really like.

Robby

I guess I've spent my whole life being middle class. Some things could be afforded, some could not. Clerking in a toy store after school was just an after-school job. One summer I was not needed at the newspaper where I was usually a summer replacement proof-reader, and ended up making Steve Allen "goo-goo" dolls. I remember I didn't like that job because the other workers said such terrible things about their husbands. (Just an embarrassed, sheltered kid.)

When my husband was in grad school and we had two small children we didn't consider ourselves poor. We just didn't have any money. After he got a job and we moved to California, I remember how shocked I was when a young neighbor asked us how to cook hotdogs! (Our staple, Robbie, like macaroni.)

Well, I must say, these are some really pertinent posts. There is one thing I have noticed: As Ann says, we all have different attitudes on how we view these former jobs. For what it's worth, I see here the oft-quoted "work-ethic thing."

Robby's story was very realistic and gripping, with a touch of humor. As he says, what if he had not liked tomatoes?

I think Jane sums it up nicely when she admits she finally recognized what a dead-end future some of these menial jobs provide, and the only answer is more education.

I think pedln says it all when she posts: "We didn't consider ourselves poor, we just didn't have any money." Well said.

Lorrie

Lorrie, and all, Buses of Senior Citizens going to Canada for Medicine

We may lose this in the morning. But worth a try.

Ginger

Got my book today, Lorrie! Rarin' to go...

Jane's comments hit home with me. I suppose that is how I came to the conclusion that I HAD to have a college degree. I had three years of college already when I got married and, like a fool, leaped right into motherhood! As a young mother in the mid-50s, it was most cost effective for me to stay at home with the little ones. But I chafed at the bit as we skimped and scraped and barely got by on one income. When those two children got into school at last, I was out looking for some parttime work. Clerical-typist kind of thing was the best I could find. A few years of that and it was back to college for me. My kids were in junior high when I got that degree!

I did the usual after school and summer job, dime store clerk and stock room stuff during my teens but THAT was fun!

I read the whole introduction last night, and Boy, this book is going to be an easy and quick read.

lorrie, I am looking forward to getting this book also but I do not leave the house at this time as just one person can make a difference pertaining to our gas prices and they have been lowered here very much so I went out today and bought gas. But will call a few places and if they have it will go out. I do make the American Legion and the Eagles meeting and the dinner with the retired members of my work place.

My younger days: Well I delivered Newspapers on horse back. Loved my horse, just enough money to feed him .

Worked my lunch hours across the street from the high school I was going to and serving my class mates. Then things got better as I worked half day when in High School at the Phone company, forgot what the school called it. Made it thru school got my diploma then got to smart for my britches, But I did end up retiring from the Bendix Corp after 30 years with a pension that our luncheon group this month is wondering how long it will last with all buy outs going on. We are also concerend about Social Security at this time. Nickel and Dimed was in my youth and it looks like it will be in my future. What say all of you?

Ginger

Jeryn: I sure like your enthusiasm. In your case, it sounds as though the jobs you held were more fun than drudgery, and I could see the same trend in Ann's description. Do you think it was because they weren't really the mainstay of income in the family budget? It made me wonder just how long ago it was that it became imperative for the non-working spouse to get part-time work, at least, in order to have a decent life and raise a family. Was there actually ever a time that a family of four, for instance, could live solely on what one bread-winner brought home?

Ginger's descriptions of her working life were very vivid. Delivering newspapers on horseback? Wow! That's wonderful, Ginger! I can see that in your case holding down a job for 30 years was not just a temporary assist, but you depended on your job for a living, I'm sure. That was a wonderful post, Ginger.

Yes, they are running buses out of Minnesota up to Canada quite often for seniors to buy prescription drugs. Our new U.S. Senator, Mark Dayton, is paying for one of the buses. As you said, Ginger, when it comes to Health care in some of these Midwestern states, we are surely being "Nickle and Dimed."

Lorrie

I was talking with friends about this book today. Some of them volunteer to work with recent immigrants in a local "English as a Second Language Program." Much of the conversation revolved around the success stories of some of these immigrants. Many are former professionals. They work at menial jobs, lives decent lives and still manage to send money to those they left behind. How?

Hope I'm not jumping the gun, but the conversation is fresh. Something to think about, perhaps, as we read.

No, pedlyn, you're not jumping the gun. Your comments are general, not specific to parts of the book, and yet still apropos of the subject. How would the rest of you explain this (about other country immigrants)?

Lorrie

A good many immigrants live in an extended family with only one person watching the younger children. They generally all pool their income to get ahead. Most Americans nowadays are into instant gratification and want nice houses, tv, vcr,etc. Immigrants are more basic and many of them value education above all.

I agree, Stephanie. I remember when I was in school, one of my classmates was Chinese-American, whose folks owned a Chinese restaurant where she would help out after school. Every night her parents made her sit at a table and do her homework and study, even before she picked up a dish. They insisted on it, although they could barely speak English themselves.

Lorrrie

Well, teacher, I've been bad. I picked up this book, as someone else mentioned, just to read the introduction. Ha! Just try it. She takes off like a house afire and before I know it, I've read all of "Serving in Florida". But my lipsfingers are sealed till July...

I, too, imagine that immigrants have ways of helping each other, pooling resources, sharing housing, that allow for such frugality as sending money home to the family. They would trust fellow countrymen and stick together more than folks whose only common bond is their poverty.

Good for you, Jeryn! Now if you can just use that self-restraint until the 1st. Only a few days until we begin our discussion officially, and I hope everyone has been able to get a copy of the book somewhere.

I think a lot of how we felt about our minimum-wage jobs, if we had one, was the way we were treated by employers. I worked at many different low-paying jobs while I was in my first year of college, and one thing I noticed most was the lack of respect we employees received from the "bosses." In those days, back in the late 40's and 50's, in my own case at least, many of the employers who hired us seemed to have an air of contempt for those working beneath them, or so it seemed to me. They carried attitudes and methods of treatment that would never be tolerated today by working people.

Lorrie

My first job after highschool in 1950 was as a stock clerk in the small warehouse of a photographic supply firm. Pay was 75c an hour, so a 40-hour week paid $30 gross. Net was closer to $27. But I was living with my folks, so money was no big problem. "Tragedy" struck when I broke my leg on a golf course (no easy task--don't ask!) just when the holidays were approaching and I couldn't make the "big money" that supposedly came with overtime.

Not interested in college, so I attended a trade school and learned Linotyping, then a high-paying skill but obsolete today. After trade school I couldn't get hired because my age made it obvious I would soon be drafted. So I volunteered for the draft, in effect telling them "take me, let's get it over with".

After two years in the Army, I had the GI Bill, so I gave college a try and got a B.A. For several years thereafter I Linotyped (the pay was still good--roughly $220 a week) at various Chicago dailies. I only left the printing trade (taking a substantial pay cut initially) for a white-collar job when it became obvious that the Linotype's days were numbered.

Oh, Rambler! I am older than you, but I sure remember hot type. In the mid fifties, I worked for a woman who owned a weekly newspaper. We became life-long (she is dead now) friends. The two of us did the WHOLE THING! She was owner (she had stockholders), publisher, editor, columnist, lay-out, and display advertising sales and copy. I was reporter, classifieds, legals, obits, proofreader, bookkeeper and collections! We went to press every Tuesday, and I had to go to the print shop to read the galleys. Once in a while, she had to be somewhere, and I stood across from the printer at a long, metal-topped table, reading our newspaper (a tabloid) upside down and backwards in the type boxes to see where to put stuff and if everything was there!

The thing I remember most was the YANKEE or DODGER signs the linotype operators would put above their station. Those guys bet heavily on the World Series. They were great people to know, and I knew them all by first name.

Those were the days, my friend! The heady days. We were downright infamous at our local drug store soda fountain counter, and everyone in town told us EVERYTHING!

MaryPage: The hot-type printing trade was 98% men; the few women were wives/daughters/sisters/mothers of the men. And the men were typically sons of other printers. Nepotism Incorporated, and of course almost exclusively white. Anyway, despite obvious technological advancements, many of those folks stayed with "the trade" too long and wound up pumping gas (back when that was an employment alternative, of sorts).

I can't help noticing how privileged we are. I don't mean that we all have monied backgrounds, but most of us have been to college and/or acquired respected, salable skills. So many of the stories posted, so far, have been about the low-paying jobs we had on the way to higher paying jobs. Or, they were 2nd income or temporary jobs.

So, I'm wondering how we're going to identify with or, at the least, keep in mind that this author's investigations brought her into contact with people who are pretty different from us...on the average, at least....people whose lives literally depend on what the minimum wage is, who don't "see" themselves on the way to something else. (A few of us may truly have been poor with no hope of a change, at some point, and some people the author worked with may have been taking college courses at night.) I might be jumping the gun, as I haven't even received the book, but from the two presentations I've seen the author do, I do get the impression that so many people she worked with are leading very different lives from those of us that are posting here.

Betty:--I agree with you and stated in my original posting that "my poverty" wasn't of the "permanent poverty" type and I would find it hard to relate. I would assume we might find outselves discussing what pulls a person out of poverty, or conversely, what keeps a person in poverty.

Robby

Betty, that is precisely what I wanted to mention! In my really diverse employment history, until I went into business for myself in later years, I was exactly in the same predicament that Ehrenreich was while working menial jobs. There's a vast difference in how you regard your work if it is the be-all and end-all of your employmment, and knowing you are "stuck" in a vicious circle doesn't add to your overall perception. I worked many jobs that I hated, but couldn't afford to quit, and when I would come home after a grueling eight hours on my feet I was too tired to even fix dinner, let alone go off to class somewhere. Back then, if you had to keep a job, you learned to take whatever they threw at you.

Robby, your description of your "poverty years" was very vivid.

Hi, Rambler! And Hello again to you, Stephanie! Stay with us!

Lorrie

Though she apparently is a person of dedication and empathy, I'm wondering to what extent Ehrenreich could identify with her co-workers. If she were to get in really serious difficulty, financial or otherwise, she could presumably go to an ATM or pick up a phone and someone would bail her out. Just the knowledge that she had those options must have provided great comfort, comfort that her co-workers didn't have.

I don't have the book. Perhaps she deals with these thoughts early-on.

In the late 1970's, a recession era, I had what was called a CETA position. I was single parenting three boys and this was a government program for people struggling as I was. Worked for barely over minimum wage in a terrible place that was supposed to be providing programs for street kids in a ghetto. Somehow was also connected to a church. Bad working conditions, no heat in the winter, heating system flooded and no air conditioning in the sweltering valley summers. There was a male power structure that was not kind to the women working there. If one spoke up even though not a clerical person, one was buried in typing and filing. I spoke up to an official at one point complaining about working conditions and was found out. I had to live with the threat of a firebomb being thrown into my living room. Kept my mouth shut after that. I formed friendships with the women and some continue to this day, we were a support system for each other. There were a few of us that were reentry women to the work force. Yes, I was going to graduate school at night as other people posting here have mentioned. I kept applying for other jobs, creating a work wardrobe from thrift stores and my abilities as a seamstress. I was able to eventually find a better job as a marketing director for a big shopping center. It didn't pay a lot at first, but I was out of the ghetto and into the world of public relations and advertising.

Rambler:

I think Ehrenreich covers your comment pretty well in the Introduction, especially on Page 6, Paragraph 2. I know you don't have a copy so I'll quote:

"I am, of course, very different from the people who normally fill America's least attractive jobs, and in ways that both helped and limited me. Most obviously I was only visiting a world that others inhabit full time, often for most of their lives. With all the assets I've built up in middle age--bank accounts, IRA, health insurance, multi-roomed home--waiting indulgently in the background, there was no way i was going to "experience poverty" or find out how hard it "really feels' to be a long-term low-wage worker. My aim here was much more straightforward and objective--just to see whether I could match income to expwnses, as the truly poor attempt to do every day."

Of course, as you say, there was one reality that she didn't have to experience. The fear.

PAIGE;

Your account of a CETA job was very illuminating. It brought back a load of memories, I had such a fill-in job, but it terminated automatically within six months. The working conditions weren't all that much different, and I am well aware of what you meant by being flooded with paper work if you complained.

These are fascinating examples of what kind of service-type work that we all did, and what a variety! I still think I like the vision of Ginger delivering her newspapers by horseback---it's a good thing you like horses, Ginger!

With a background like this, we can all relate in some ways to what the author will be telling us when we begin Sunday.

Lorrie

Let's hear it for Paige and Lorrie!

You gals are wonderful.

I love the image of someone delivering the papers on horseback. But then when I was a teen and younger I lived on horseback as much as I could. I had problems throughout the book with how to relate to the kind of poverty and ambitions of the people involved. I would guess that most of us will have this same problem. For the most part senior net is full of strivers.. If not, we would not have plunged into learning the computer in all its glory at our ages.

"Strivers"... This is so true, Stephanie. As a public welfare employee for 13 years, I can shed a little light on "the kind of people" Ehrenreich works with--what makes them "tick". You could walk a hundred miles in their shoes, though, and still not be "of their kind." What you have upstairs when you're born is what makes the difference.

MARY PAGE: Thank you kindly!

STEPHANIE: I like the term "strivers" when you apply it to us Senior Netters. Yes, I'm proud of the way i jumped in, as frightened of new "gadgets" as i was, and at the ripe old age of 75, to learn how to use a computer, and thenk Heaven i did!

JERYN: Now there! The kind of work you did gave you a much better understanding of the way people with whom you dealt daily, and I'm sure that points of this book will be familiar to you. Good thought!

Lorrie

I've been thinking a lot about Jeryn's remark that "what you have upstairs when you're born is what makes the difference."

There are exceptions, of course, but in general what that is saying (to me, at least) is that it is almost a foregone conclusion that certain people (and certain families) will become and remain poverty stricken. In Democracy in America, we are currently discussing genetics, a most intriguing subject. I know that Jeryn didn't say this, but can we infer from it that we are wasting our time trying to move the majority of poor people out of that category because they just "dont't have it upstairs?"

Robby

That was my conclusion, Robby, depressing as it may seem. That is why there is a welfare system and will always be one, such as it is, among civilized peoples. You can remove some barriers [furnish day care, for example] and move them into the kind of jobs that Ehrenreich is describing, but they are not going to advance and many are going to fail.

In that case, if they "don't have it," is it our responsibility to take care of them?

Robby

We're posting at the same time, Robby! See my post #37... you got it in one!

Those of us who "have it upstairs" so to speak were presented with a biological gift. We have not had to "nickel and dime" it except for short periods in our lives and can not take credit for our genes. Seems like a lesson for humility.

Robby

Indeed, Robby. There "but for the grace of God" go I, or you, and you, and you. I have to tell you, working for the welfare department changed my outlook on life FOREVER!

Robby, and Jeryn: Don't go far, we can resume this thread as soon as we get our discussion here off the ground!

So, okay everyone, are we ready to start talking about the book?

Our first week, let’s discuss Ehrenreich’s adventures on her first job, as a waitress in a restaurant in Key West, Florida, if that’s all right with you all.

I was surprised to learn that the number of lower-paying jobs offered in the help-wanted sections of the newspapers was hardly indicative of the vacancies at any particular time. It seems that most of these places use these ads as insurance against the relentless turnover of the low- wage work force. Most of the big hotels run ads almost coninually, if only to build a supply of applicants.

Having worked as a waitress, it didn’t surprise me to learn that most of them are paid a wage much lower than the minimum, and it’s perfectly legal for employers to pay lower wages to “tipped” employees. I have worked in places where the salary was 50 cents an hour, and where we had to pool all of our tips to be shared by bus boys and kitchen help. Not too many patrons are aware of this.

How do you feel about the required pre-employment drug testing? It seems a bit futile, in my opinion, because all any potential hiree has to do is stay clean until their urine is tested, and in a few day go right back to smoking marijuana or whatever it is they do. Health-testing for disease is another story entirely. After all, they are handling food. Incidentally, whatever happened to the mandatory chest x-ray and test for venereal diseases that used to be required? At one time a worker in an eating establishment could not report for work without a proper form from the Board of Health. In those days, it was the threat of TB that the authorities worried about.

Lorrie

Lorrie, I was somewhat puzzled by the same questions. I thought that food handlers in the state of Florida had certain medical requirements, but she never mentioned it. I have no arguments with drug testing. It doesnt prove much, but the refusal to take it to me says volumes. I did not test in my retail stores, because I did not hire that sort of volume and could work by observation. However I was disturbed by the authors disdain for the process and her attitude that it was made to look down on the help. Her housing problems interested me the most. I think that clean and decent housing should be available to all and that it is a constant problem in some areas. Having just been in Key West in the last month, the housing market is extremely tight. But then again, it is a tiny tiny place and very trendy. I assume most of the low income help must live further up the keys and none of them are that cheap. The keys in Florida tend to have higher costs for everything. That has to affect low income in all sorts of ways.

Is the pooling of tips between waitresses, busboys, kitchen help the rule? It surely seems difficult to police: the customer might leave $3 and the waitress could say she only got $2.

I tend to over-tip, partly because we go to familiar places where the help have become friends, partly because we know they need the money. Even if we go to a new place and the food or service are marginal, I'll normally tip 15%. The waitress/waiter isn't responsible for either the food or how quickly or slowly the kitchen prepares it.

We only under-tip if we get ignored when the place is not busy or if the waiter is hostile or indifferent or screws up our order.

In a couple of restaurants we often visit, the busboys are Mexican, perhaps working on a green card. They're friendly, they work hard, and somehow they manage to live on a busboy's pay and still (I think) send money home to Mexico. I'm not defending the status quo; I'm just expressing admiration for the gritty determination displayed by such people.

Nobody's really talking about the book yet, so I'll hold forth.

From a Harvard U. study re housing released on Tuesday: "The fact that nearly two-thirds of extremely low-income households spend more than half their incomes on housing is a glaring sign that affordiability is a nationwide problem".

I just walked a block or so to ogle a 4-bedrm., 3-1/2 bath condo that was offered for $569,900. (Didn't know I've lived in such a ritzy area for 24 years!) The sign outside said, "Open House Cancelled", which must mean the place sold for the asking price or more. Condos in downtown Chicago go for millions, and one parking space costs more than my folks paid for the only single-family house they ever owned. Is something amiss here?

So far. I haven't obtained the book but as I red the comments about drug testing a thought crossed my mind. Not only would one have to stay clean for a long period of time, but one would have to remember not to eat anything with poppy seeds. Morphine and heroin come from poppies and I guess the urine doesn't know the difference. I know of a persone who had this problem.

STEPHANIE: That's true--Ehrenreich didn't mention if there were still medical tests to pass when dealing with food, we can but hope they are still required.

RAMBLER: In my waitressing days most of our customers paid with credit cards (we served many business lunches) so there was a pretty clear record of tips. For the tax people, too, I might add. I suppose one could cheat a bit on how much money they got, but most of the other workers have a pretty good idea.

Lorrie

LOUISE: Now that is enlightening! I can see how that might happen, and just imagine one's embarrassment if one were caught with tell-tale signs of drug use when all one did was eat a poppy-seed roll!

Lorrie

RAMBLER: All through this book, the author keeps repeating that one of the main drawbacks to making ends meet today is the lack of affordable housing. I agree this is a national problem, and not just certain locales. Here in the subsidized Senior housing where I live we all live in a state of constant apprehension from one year to the next as our HUD subsidies are renewed. That could change at any time with directives from Washington, and we all are aware of the unattractive options open if we have to move: living with relatives, going into a nursing home, or moving into a private rental hoping the savings will keep neck and neck with the rent increases. And another terror we have to face---many apartment building owners are opting to bow out of the subsidy contracts and be able to go to "market rent" which is happening more and more often.

In the book, Ehrenreich points out how simply finding a roof over your head is enough to drain a good portion of what little low-income people make.

As far as I can see, the only kind of housing I see being built is more and more luxury apartments and condominiums.

Lorrie

Lorrie: Re housing: And how about the shelter-seeking drain on the time of Nickel and Dimers, time they need for rest between shifts?

I suppose a devil's advocate (like me) might say, "Well, they don't (as a rule) vote. Or if they do, they vote against their own interests. So they deserve what they get." Is that not true? Most voters are of modest means, but many vote against their own interests. Sorry to get political.

Lorrie, I see people on welfare who spend $20.00 on the Lottery and know why, they are trying to get ahead but the Lotteries in this country is the downfall of so many. Why do you think we have to have the Lotteries which is really the down fall of so many. I sometimes spend a dollar on a scratch off so I am guilty but I do not think that I can afford to spend twenty dollars on a gamble and do the nessitaries here also. My Father was addicted to Gambling so I know from where I speak. He Gold Leafed Notre Dame here in Indiana and died Broke. I had a good job and did not need money from him.

My Mother handled the money (she worked for) wisely and that is how we had a house to live in after living in a trailer ( like a camper today) for so many years even after our travelng days were not nessasary.

I do not have my book yet so maybe off track. Forgive Please if I am.

Ginger

RAMBLER: You are correct in stating that some lower-income people tend to vote against their own interests, and why that is I couldn't tell you.

Ehrenreich tells of how, when she found she couldn't make it on just one job, she tried working two, but was physically unable to do both. I like the humor she shows when she writes about some truly discouraging aspects of her first job.

GINGER: Oh, Ginger, I know it's because these people have the unrealistic dream of winning a lottery and thereby solving all their problems, but $20 does seem like a huge sum to spend on a dream, especially in their particular circumstances. Don't worry that you don't have the book yet. We all enjoy hearing from you anyway. By the way, what is meant by "Gold Leafed Notre Dame that you wrote about your father?"

Lorrie

So what is an oxytocin receptor? page 37. I haven't a clue. I did wind up this chapter feeling so bad about George. If he got sent back to the Czech Republic, I hope he does not harbor entirely negative feelings for our nation.

Lorrie: Perhaps the best-known symbol for Notre Dame U. is its golden dome, which--if the trees aren't too leafy--is visible from Interstate 80/90. We go that way en route to family get-togethers in Elkhart, Ind. I suppose the dome is on a campus church; don't know. Gold is the color of N.D. football helmets, no doubt because of the dome.

Does the lack of good judgment (in my view, anyway) of how money is spent (ie, buying lottery tickets/beer/cigarettes/prepared grocery items/dog food)when money is apparently tight (given other grocery items are being purchased with food stamps) an indication of overall poor decision making that extends to all aspects of life...ie, preparing oneself for jobs, etc.?

I did a search on oxytocin and most of it I couldn't begin to understand. Finally found this:

Oxytocin

Oxytocin Oxytocin is a peptide of 9 amino acids. Its principal actions are: stimulating contractions of the uterus at the time of birth stimulating release of milk when the baby begins to suckle Oxytocin is often given to prospective mothers to hasten birth.

Other references dealt with animal infertility, etc.---way over my head! ;0)

š jane›

Jane:--I think your key word there is "prepare." Some folks go their entire lives without preparing but live hand to mouth day by day without thinking of tomorrow.

Robby

And, Robby, without thought/consideration of the consequences of the day to day decisions?

And sometimes realizing the negative consequences but just not caring?

Robby

MARY PAGE: Can you tell us the significance of the phrase "oxytocin receptor" along with Jane's explanation? I'll admit I haaven't a clue. I, too, felt a sadness about poor George.

RAMBLER: Of course, blue and gold, Notre Dame colors!

ROBBY AND JANE: Don't you think, though, that the mind-numbing jobs, and the endless exhaustion that most of the low-wage earners contend with have a lot to do with their perception of the future? I wonder if, after a while, the whole thing simply boils down to one day at a time?

Lorrie

Lorrie, I cannot! The definition Jane discovered STILL does not open the windows of my so-called mind! I have no IDEA what the author meant? I mean, what did GEORGE have to do with her conceiving, birthing, or lactating? There is a second or third definition we have not gloomed onto here.

Unless our author is attempting, by subtle and obscure reference here, to say that George brought out the mothering instinct in her. Yes, I do believe that is what she is saying. I do not care for it being said in this too, too clever way. She is waving the banner of her scholarship way over our mundane heads.

Lorrie, Notre Dame has a huge Dome and it is covered in pure Gold a mighty expense Dome. I do not know if they still use Gold but they did at the time my Father did it. He was a steeplejack, that is to say he worked high on Churches and smokestakes etc.

Does anyone else feel the author is being a little too patronizing here?

What is your opinion of some of Ehrenreich's fellow workers? Can you relate to them in any way? Does her experience remind you at all of your own personal employment history?

GINGER: Ah, that explains it! Thank you, Ginger! A steeplejack--I didn't think they still had them, or at least were called something else. Interesting.

Lorrie

Lorrie...are what we call "the mind-numbing jobs" all that some people wish to have/are capable of doing...and that's why they don't work to "improve" their job talents themselves, by working to get new skills? We are all different..with different levels of intelligence, skills, creativity, etc., I think. What someone else is capable of may not be what I can do.

Jane, when you wrote, "Are what we call the 'mind-numbing jobs' all that some people wish to have/are capable of doing and that's why they don't work to improve their job talents themselves....," I would add to your "wish to have/are capable of doing" the common first step of perspective. If someone doesn't see herself as capable or has missed out on a parent or teacher who said "you can do anything you put your mind to and work hard for," then she may never reach the next steps.

My family was really poor, I mean desperately poor, but my mother decided her children would go to college, so there were never any will we/won't we discussions. None of us even realized how incongruous it was to be accepting groceries from my grandparents at the end of the month while never doubting that we would each be a college graduate.

I know now that many poor children don't have a vision of themselves doing anything but "working" after high school. In the true story movie "Rudy," Rudy wanted to attend Notre Dame but had to fight his family to get there. His father told him that he wasn't college material and, "That's a school for rich kids." He wanted him to go work in the steel mill with his older brothers. Rudy did go to Notre Dame (had dreamed of it since he was in elementary school) and graduated, even made it onto the football team his senior year. Five of Rudy's younger brothers went to college and all graduated.

On the money-wasting habits, I believe just as many middle-class people live on the edge as poorer people. Some do it with credit card debt.

Right, Betty, but Rudy DID see himself doing better...having a future, not being content with nothing, and Rudy did get to college. In this age when there are community colleges and adult education courses and outreach courses, I find it harder to accept that anyone who doesn't truly WANT to do better can't. Years ago, yes, those resources and student loans/work-study wasn't available. That's no longer true, at least in this rural area of the midwest.

I've suggested, when someone has expressed to me they don't like "working at xxxx," taking courses at the CC...and have been told, "but that'd cut into my social life," "but I want to buy a new car," "but I don't know if I want to take courses", but, but, but."

On the other hand, I've seen single moms work one or two jobs, take courses, and generally work their fannies off to get a skill/education that would provide a better income.

I guess I go back to my dad's philosophy...drummed into me as a youngster: "nothing's free and anything worthwhile must be worked for." At least that has been the pattern in my own life.

I think you're absolutely right about "living on the edge" and credit card debt. I've read the average credit card debt is something, to me, astronomical...like $8,000 or so? I find that mind boggling and hard to accept as fact, but have read it.

I am so terribly fortunate in that I don't owe a penny!

The housing seems to be a constant whereever you go. What is needed is some sort of subsidized housing,but so many of this sort of thing has real problems. In Boston where we lived for a long time, the low income housing was completely dominated by Firemen, Policemen and other people with municipal jobs. They made more than they were supposed to to live there, but were never ever asked to leave. They in some cases, lived in the same housing for three generations and I would guess truly believed it was their home. However there were so many people who needed the housing much more. Years ago I read a book about Vienna before WWII. It seems that the labor unions and trade unions built large apartment buildings for their members. People lived in these their entire lives and they sounded lovely. I have always wondered why Unions in the US never used all their millions to do this rather than some of the other investments they seem to make. I know.. a little off topic, but relevant, I think

This book does stimulate some interesting thoughts and comments! I think Jane made a key statement about people who work at low-paying jobs over long periods of time without apparent effort to improve their lots... they may NOT be capable, for one reason or another, of anything else.

I'd be interested in what you all think of Ehrenreich's manner of LEAVING the waitress position? How long did she last... two weeks? I am left wondering about the others who really cannot exercise that option, CANNOT walk out when the going gets tough. The alternative might be an even worse life than the one they have.

Stephanie: I was going to say that, in the present day, not many Americans want to live in apartments or condos. But that depends a lot on age and wealth. Often, older or wealthier folks want to live in apartments or condos, because they can afford them, there are elevators (rather than stairs) and because, often, you can walk to the supermarket or city-center attractions, or have public transportation and you don't have to have a car. Local 6 ("Big Six") of the International Typographical Union built or backed apartment buildings in New York City. The union has pretty much faded away, I think, but I also think retired members still live there.

By the way, I have the book.

I sold my home and moved into an apartment to cut down on my physical labor, full of arthritis as I am! It is WONDERFUL not to have to lift a finger to fix anything, mow, dig, plant, rake, etc.

Well, this is great! I love hearing different opinions, and apparently this book can bring forth many of them. I'm glad you got the book, by the way, Rambler!

BETTY AND JANE: I think what you are saying is that if a person doesn't have the impetus, be it from home, peers, a dedicated teacher, whatever, then that person is less apt to try to better him or herself, right? Perhaps. Does anyone think that the lack of afordable housing plays any part in this? Having to work two tiring jobs in order to have a decent place to live would dampen anyone's ambitions.

Jeryn: I would say that what happened to Ehrenreich on her last day as a waitress has happened to many other workers in the same predicament. I remember one time years ago I had a similar experience, when a crowd of patrons came in all at once, rather than "staggering" and I was simply overwhelmed. In that particular type of work, diners don't really understand how much the wait-person is caught in the middle. On the one hand they see the irate, sometimes downright mean attitudes of the customers, and on the other they're at the mercy of temperamental chefs in the kitchen. When that happens to other workers in those circumstances, they do what Ehrenreich did, walk off. Usually to another similar job. That's why the turnover is so great.

MARY PAGE: And if you're able to travel, just to turn the key in the lock and just go!

I reall enjoy the author's sense of humor. To wit:

About a restaurant where she worked in Florida: "Picture a fat person's hell, and I don't mean a place with no food."


Also in the restaurant: "I bond with Timmy, the fourteen-year-old white kid who buses at night, by telling him I don't like people putting their baby seats right on the tables: it makes the baby look too much like a side dish. Hahahaha

Lorrie

Her wit and sarcasm do carry one right along on a tide of smiles even though the subject matter is anything but funny. This is good, I guess--keeps you reading what she wants you to read!

I am enjoying the posts so much. Will try to get the book soon. I live in the country and the painters called and said they would be back tomorrow. Having the windows done, both sides of the storms and the outside of the windows under the storms.

Ginger

I very much like Barb Ehrenreich. I felt the same when my only contact with her was her Time mag column. Yeah, maybe her vocabulary is a bit egghead/trendy/cutesy at time. But hey, if she sounded like Walter Lippman (remember him?), who would read? She's bright, gutsy, and she has a social conscience. I don't know of anyone in her league except Molly Ivins.

I both like and admire her, Rambler. Truly I do. She is a warm, witty, compassionate person. I just did not care for that one phrase; I felt it was reaching too much.

As for Molly Ivins, now I ADORE that big ole gal! Have you noticed she is a very blond blond these days? I think the red suits her better.

I'm trying to play catch up here, sorry. In reference to thoughts about the possibility of those of us in low paying jobs while going to college and trying to better our lives, whether or not we were different from the others in that work force, I want to quote Ehrenreich. She says, "low-wage workers are no more homogeneous in personality or ability than people who write for a living, and no less likely to be funny or bright. Anyone in the educated classses who thinks otherwise ought to broaden their circle of friends." Interesting...the part about being funny may have to do, in part, with humor as a coping skill. I've certainly used that all of my life!

I too love Molly!

It was interesting, as someone posted, about no mention of a TB test for food workers, it's just a skin test now. And TB has become a big health concern again because it has grown resistant to the antibiotics that we have, hard to beat and growing among the homeless. All was so slap, dash in a hurry in the kitchens, I would liked to have heard something about the cleanliness or lack of it.

The feeling of living on the edge is clear isn't it? During the 1970's, there was a slogan in the women's movement that every woman was one man(usually a husband) away from welfare. Men were leaving in numbers not seen before and middle classed families quickly became lower classed families when fathers left. As others here have stated, credit card debt is a big problem and very hard to dig out of, think of that in a low-wage job, scary.

Please go to Authors Authors here in our Books and Literature as there is an Author there that has a new book coming out that relates to our subject here.

RAMBLER: Another thing about Ehrenreich---she does not go into this book with an attitude of "them" and "we". On the contrary, as she says in her interview with James Fallows of Atlantic Monthly:

As for worrying about seeming to be "slumming": Truth is, it never occurred to me. Due to accidents of marriage and birth, I've spent a lot of my life with blue- and pink-collar people, both low and medium wage. My husband of many years, for example, was a warehouse worker, truck driver, and steel worker—and not exactly by choice!—before landing a job as a union organizer, after which our house was routinely filled with factory workers, janitors, nurses, or whomever he happened to be organizing at the time. Plus, in those days, between his wages and my piddling freelance income, we weren't doing so well ourselves. So when I waded out into the low-wage work world for this project, I didn't feel I was entering some exotic new social environment.

PAIGE: Yes, I would have liked to read a little more about the overall cleanliness of these places she worked, but on the other hand, did it really have that much bearing on what she is trying to say? I liked what you said about using humor as a coping skill. I can relate to that. And that slogan about a woman being one man away from welfare is a new one to me. Hahaha Right on!

GINGER: Never fear, tha painters will be done soon and all your windows will be bright and shiny and ready for next winter!

Lorrie

Ehrenreich and Molly Ivins....oh, great pairing, Rambler. The old fashioned word spunk fits both. Love them both!!

MaryPage (also Paige, betty): Ivins has been battling breast cancer, apparently successfully. The blond hair may be a wig.

A Texas acquaintance of hers just sent me the transcript of an interview with Molly. Unfortunately, I never learned to copy-and-paste, so I can't readily send it to you.

Referring back to Posts 55, 56, 57, and 58 where Jane and I commented on the apparent lack of preparedness and lack of concern on the part of poverty stricken people, here are some excerpts from an article in this morning's NY Times. It is ostensibly about the high rate of HIV in black women in the South, but the underlying theme is about how very poor people feel. Here are some quotes:--

Many of the patients understood before they were infected that HIV could be transmitted heterosexually and yet, they place themslves knowingly at risk.

They struggle to explain their recklessness. They just did not think it could happen to them. I just blocked it out of my mind.

Such high-stakes risk-taking may seem to make no sense, but it must be viewed within the context of lives defined by fatalism, faith and powerlessness.

There is little to break the tedium and despondency of life and certainly little that provides pleasure, other than sex.

There's a sense that you don't control your life that much. All of their life experiences teach them that they have very little control over their future.

We see it in terms of prostitution, but they see it as how they have to frame their lives, especially if they have children or elderly parents to care for. It's just trying to make ends meet, day-to-day survival.

Maybe this will help some of us to better understand what it is to nickel and dime one's way through life.

Robby

Goodness, miss a few days and it gets overwhelming. What a lot of fascinating posts. Paige, I'm glad you quoted BE about low-wage earners not being homogeneous. I sure agree. Someone mentioned the film Rudy -- that brought to mind "October Sky" about the young boys from the coal mining community who wanted to build a rocket so they could get scholarships to college and get out of the mines. They were encouraged by their science teacher, but the principal's attitude was "They boys are going to work in the mines anyway. Don't encourage them to seek higher."

I think whoever mentioned "strivers" several posts back, really said a lot. Our local newspaper has an anonymous call-in column and right now they are talking about the president of Brown University, a black woman who started life as the daughter of a sharecropper. One of the callers stated that not everyone is endowed with enough attributes to do what she did.

ROBBY: What an insightful article! I especially noted the explanation: "lives defined by fatalism, faith, and powerlessness."

Also:

"There's a sense that you don't control your life that much. All of their life experiences teach them that they have very little control over their future."

To me that explains a lot about the way the subjects of this book think.

MARY PAGE: Thank you for the links!

Lorrie

Over 11,000 web sites mention our author. This I just found by doing a Google search. Here is just one:

INTERVIEW WITH BARBARA EHRENREICH

I just finished this list for prospective buyers of my house which is now on the market and came to the conclusion that owning property is something I never want to do again. I'd rather have money and let landlords keep the places up. The list is still on the clip board. I thought it might be fun to put it here if not exactly appropriate.

<color-blue size-2> IMPROVEMNTS

These have been done since I moved in in 1986 and except for the first year when the furnace and the garbage disposal were replaced I don't have dates or amounts spent for them.

full house carpeting

pool heater pool filter water change

fences -- cedar to replace old grape stake

entry -- concrete steps from driveway

aluminum sheds -- three of them 10 x 10 ft.

ceramic kiln and concrete slab

outdoor electric outlets and plumbing

new roof open gsable ends insulate ceiling in the attic add turbines and fan

central air conditioning

windows double in master bedroom complete in apartement except for bathroom

apartment carpeting and paint

replace shower and enclosure in master bathroom new faucets in master bath sink

new stove top replace faucets kitchen sink

redo intry roofing, steps and decking

connect to sewer from original septic tank system

surface driveway shared section and personal section

electrical plugs changed from two prong to three prong throughout.

paint interior white

new deck on south-east portion of house

People who own castles have the same problem. snobbery is EXPENSIVE. . . . Claire

CLAIRE:

That's quite a list of things that were done. When you add up all the improvements we make over the years to our homes it can come to quite a sum, can't it? A word to the wise: if you even think about renting your house while it is on the market, forget it! My husband and I made that mistake, because it was out in the boonies and we didn't want an empty house attracting vandals, but that decision was a disaster!

Ah, yes, castle owners find owning property expensive, of course, but still they have the option of putting down the moat and opening up to renters, simply go on enjoying the satisfaction of living in a place they own, or refurbishing the castle a bit and selling it at a neat profit on today's market. I imagine people in low-paying jobs would give their eye-teeth to have any of those choices.

This may be a trifle off the path of our subject, but in the past few years I have felt the utmost respect for a project that I think is truly admirable, one that was instigated by former President Jimmy Carter, and one which I have seen benefit people at first hand, time after time. Habitat for Humanity, and well-named it is!

Lorrie

As Ehrenreich makes clear in the last sentence of her Introduction, her experience is a best-case scenario. (Don't like to use bold, but italic comes out run together, i.e., "a best-case scenario").

Anyway, if she found conditions impossible to bear, think of the "dishies" and cooks--some of doubtful legality and most with shaky or non-existent English, probably earning less money. What alternatives, or opportunities to complain, do they have?

"Jerry's" sounds a lot like Denny's or Shoney's to me. In my experience, most other national chains are burger or seafood joints. "Jerry's" seems to be neither.

Rambler: two minds with one great thought! I kept thinking Denny's as well!

another vote from me...such a fine human thing to do..makes me proud to be one (SS)

Claire

Nobody posting today. Is everybody off picnicking or setting off firecrackers?

True story from a recent N.Y. Times. There was a restaurant across from a big hotel in D.C. A large group of middle-aged women, attending some conference in the hotel, came over for lunch. It was a warm day, but they sat outside anyway.

Their waiter really hustled to see that they got everything fairly promptly and as ordered. The total check was something like $150, and they literally nickel-and-dimed him--even some pennies!

Now, this waiter is a normally easygoing guy--but when the women left, he blew his stack. He scooped up the coins and chased after them, throwing the coins at their feet and saying things like, "Go back to (bleeping) Indiana, you (bleeping) cows!" This so upset the women that they hailed a passing squadcar.

Unknown to them, the cop was a regular customer at the restaurant--and they proceeded to get a stern lecture on the customs and folkways of life in a big city, including proper tipping.

At the restaurant, the cop got better-than-ever service after that!

Hope this didn't sound sexist. The participants' sexes are really irrelevant.

This is NOT to defend the women described in your post, Rambler, but I believe there are people, particularly women, who do not know what is an appropriate amount to tip. Especially those whose spouses always take care of the bills, usually scrawling something on a credit card bill.

And most likely, those servers in New York are used to receiving more in tips than people from other locales usually pay. What is the proper amount -- somewhere between 15 and 20% would be my guess.

So, while it may sound farfetched, ignorance can play a part.

It sure would be easier if restaurants would include the tip, especially if there is a large group. Some do, I know.

A few posts back, some comments thought "Jerry's restaurant" might be Shoneys or Dennys. Do they now serve beer in some places -- one of the tourists was into her "third Michelob."

pedln: Cape Girardeau?

I think 15% is fairly standard, 20% in upscale places or if the service is especially good. Unless service is really slovenly and disdainful, I never tip less than 15%. The money won't make or break us, but it can mean a lot to the server.

where waiters bring you a glass of water and maybe a bill at the end. . . I tip sometimes if they smile at me . my usual thing is fifteen unless there are table clothes (clothes) when I squeeze out twenty. What bugs me is that when I"m having lunch with someone who is much younger they insist upon the twenty as if I"m just not with it, i.e. stupid or something. Twenty per cent is one fifth of the bill --too much unless the up scale is really UP and the service matches in my not at all humble opinion.

Claire

I always tip. The rare 10% goes to poor service. 15% indicates okay service. 20% goes to good service, and 20% plus a buck or two extra to outstanding service.

Hard to believe that there wouldn't be one savy lady amongst the group who didn't tip properly; thought those females are scarce these days.

There is no excuse for the women from Indiana not tipping as expected. If they are going to travel, (unescorted) they should acquaint themselves with what is customary for a tip. There is no place in the Midwest where tipping is not expected... unless it says so on the menu.

Self service buffets draw a 10% tip here in IL ... Restaurant (Applebee style) .. 15% .... Upscale .. 20% If it is not included with the check... If service is exceptional I add another5%. Because waitresses around here work for $2.00/ hr.

Claire, you must have been lunching with my daughter from Northern CA. "Be sure you leave a good tip, Mom, because I come here a lot. . . Now, how much did you leave?"

Like I'm just not with it.

After my father died, my late mother carried a card that shows you the amount to tip. If the bill is $20, the card says $3 for 15%, $4 for 20%, etc. I think the card is sold at Hallmark and similar stores.

I have several of those. Indestructible plastic, they are!

I've been reading up some more on what I feel is the biggest hurdle for people on low salaries: Finding a decent affordable place to live. This is a subject on which I have personally been involved. Here are some facts that I put together.

Last year, in the midst of the boom, 72 percent of cities surveyed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors said requests for emergency shelter were increasing. Rents are rising at twice the general inflation rate.

And the supply of apartments affordable to America's 9 million most struggling families -- working poor people without government housing assistance -- sank 5 percent from 1991 to 1997.

Critics say we're an officially callous nation. There are years-long waiting lists for the federal government's housing assistance vouchers. Only one in three Americans poor enough to qualify for rental aid receives it.

So what's the cure? The conventional answer is more federal housing assistance, or perhaps foundation support for community development housing efforts. And there's no question: both would help a lot. It's hard to justify being so stingy toward working poor families, including many people newly off the welfare rolls, during a period of unprecedented national prosperity!

Lorrie

HELLO, JOANMARM! WELCOME! Have you read the book? Either way, come on in and tell us what you think! We welcome all new posters.

Lorrie

On affordable housing, which I consider a leading reason for people not able to get ahead. It occurs that all of the philanthropists ( Now there is a serious misspelling) they give money for education, AIDs, music, etc. A more interesting application would be to set up a foundation and build affordable housing to be rented or purchased at a reduced rate. I did discover by accident that Habitat has to get the new owners to sign a pledge not to sell for several years. It seems it is possible to make a profit right away on a Habitat house. I have also seen a street of Habitat houses that were 7 and 8 years old and could have cried. All running down, dirt yards, no paint renewal, just shabby, old cars out front, old garbage cans on the street. Obviously housing is only part of the problem. Training in the art of living would also help. The waitressing in Ehrenreich bothered me. She only did it for 2 weeks, so she had no experience. Most entry level are much better waitresses than she was. She seemed to be owed or thought she was and that bothered me. I tip and always try to tip, but nowadays in Florida, we have a lot of waitresses and waiters who seem to be waiting tables on their way to being a star or something. Service is incredibly bad in mid level restaurants. Make no mistake, just last week, we could see our meals set up on the service area, see the cook ring the bell three times and the waitress and she continued to talk to a buddy. When she brought the food, the egg was congealed and I sent it back. She was quite indignant. We tipped, but now I truly think we should not have. It was not the cooks fault, but hers.

On a recent visit to Chicago I read this article about the tight apartment market. (See clickable below) What was really scary was the prediction for 2020 -- 19 years hence. Population in the Chicago area is expected to increase by one million people, thus a need for 30,000 new rental units. Multiply by metropolitan areas across the country.

http://www.dailyherald.com/search/main_story.asp?intID=370743

STEPHANIE: No, I firmly believe that in the case of the congealed eggs that you had to send back and where you could see it was the server's fault, no tip at all was required.

Your statement about housing playing a role in why it's so hard for people to make ends meet, can apply also to the suburbs. One of the owners of a suburban restaurant had such trouble keeping a work force, because his employees couldn't afford to live within a reasonable distance, many of them didn't have cars, and bus service was unpredictable. In desperation, he bought a house near the restaurant, added two more baths, and rented it out to all his employees, much to the disgruntlement of his neighbors.

Lorrie

PEDLYN; Scary, isn't it?

Again, on the subject of scarcity of affordable places to live in the suburbs, too, here's an except from Neal Pierce's column in The National Journal, Oct. 24, 1999:

"Across the country, there's a common chorus of complaints from suburban employers: "We can't find workers for our job slots. Commutes are getting longer and longer, and our workers are arriving frazzled and exhausted. Folks can't afford to live anywhere near here.

It's hard to be sympathetic. Often these are the same corporations that took their plants and offices out of town, to decentralized locations, sometimes accepting generous suburban government tax incentives to make the move. And then failed to raise a finger when the suburban localities enacted forms of zoning that effectively excluded the working poor.

Now the traffic generated by a society that won't build housing for all classes and incomes everywhere has begun to threaten gridlock region after region. Chronic labor shortages might eventually force the economies of some areas to stall out.

So there's solid economic reason for any region -- employers, governments, citizens -- to take a strong interest in affordable housing. Just upping the numbers of housing vouchers won't suffice. The working poor have to find a welcome -- housing included -- in the suburbs"

Lorrie

Now, as we move on toward the end of Ehrenreich's experience as a waitress in Florida, do you think, like some, that she wasn't really on the job long enough to make the comparisons she did? She talked a lot about the point of view of the management, but I felt there was more she could have said about the other employees. Was their behaviour always exemplary? Surely there were instances where job termination was the only answer, but we didn't hear too much about that.

Lorrie

She was awfully concerned and generous to her fellow employees.

HEY, HEY, HEY! Where is everybody? We're just getting ready to talk about Barbara's entrance into the world of toilet bowl cleansers and vacuums! What fun! Let's hear it from all of our participants, are you still with us?

Lorrie

Lorrie: Hush! I'm preparing a post of incredible insight and wisdom.

Now, what exactly was it all about?

I'm here, but busy catching up with reading a few other things at the moment.

I'm here, just way too excited to get to talk about those toilet bowl cleansers soon, I guess...

I am checking in.

"Only later" (p. 15) "will I realize that the want ads are not a reliable measure of the actual jobs available at any particular time." Just a few years ago, seeking to promote "welfare reform", some flake (Gingrich? Clinton?) pointed to the want ads as an indication that jobs were plentiful.

I had not fully realized that poverty is so much more expensive than being safely above the poverty level. On p. 27, Ehrenreich tells a co-worker she is astonished that the co-worker is considering spending $40 to $60 a day to move into the Days Inn. "She squints at me in disbelief: 'And where am I supposed to get a month's rent and a month's deposit for an apartment?'"

Near here, on Chicago's "el" (elevated) or subway trains, I see blue-collar workers, usually wearing some airline garb, riding toward O'Hare Field. Most seem to be baggage handlers, and surely most cannot afford to live on Chicago's upscale north and northwest sides. So they spend a fair share of their lives sleeping on the subway, going to and from work.

I am interested in the maid experience. Some of what she said seemed quite true, but some did not seem reasonable. A system is what the franchise maid companies sell, so I do understand the method they used to clean. However I cannot believe that people draw back from someone in a maids uniform. I simply would not even consider this behavior. The housing in Maine was horrid. Housing seems to be the biggest problem no matter where she was. But when you hire a maid or maid service, they are meant to clean a dirty house... So her laments about toilets, etc seem stupid to me.

Seems a little slow this a.m., so forgive me if I ramble a bit

Tipping: Concerning large groups leaving small tips. It sure helps to have separate checks -- for both paying and tipping. Nothing sillier than 4 or 5 women trying to figure out who owes what and how much to tip. Don't know if this would ensure a larger tip for the server or not.

Earlier this summer I went on my second river cruise on a barge that states up front -- No tipping. It's all figured in. -- The service on both trips was great most of the time, and when it wasn't, it was due more to inexperience than anything else. I asked one of the servers how he felt about the "no tipping." He said he got it in his pay anyway, so no objections. If it hadn't been that way, he would have expected it (a tip).

This was an entirely different setup than BE experienced, but when the crew & servers were off duty, they could participate in any of the activities open to guests. What a contrast to servers being told they couldn't eat in the restaurant when it wasn't busy, or they couldn't go to the hotel bar (when not working) because one worker got drunk. Another thing that bothered me was that lockers and anything in them could be searched at any time by management. You'd almost think they were trying to set up an "us-them" anti-management condition.

I was a bothered by some of the attitude that came out of this section. Ehrenreich seemed a bit smug. She never had anyone clean her house because she wouldn't want that kind of relationship with another person. So what's the difference with having someone put on a new roof, cut down a tree, mow the lawn? Does she disdain that type of relationship too? Most of us work somehow for someone else.

I also felt she stereotyped the homeowners -- that they were lazy do-nothings who didn't think, didn't read, but spent their time with fancy TV systems (like the new world folk in Fahrenheit 451)

(Nickel and Dimed gets me started thinking about Fahrenheit 451, but I haven't really thought that thru enough to know why.)

Well, I hire a cleaning lady. She is a young divorcee in her twenties with a 3 year old daughter. Her mother baby-sits while she runs her own cleaning business, subs in the rental office of my apartment complex, and goes to college at night! Her name is Rachel and we are great good friends! She understands it is my age (72) and arthritis that force me to have her. I don't tell her that I have ALWAYS had someone come in to clean my house!

I am housesitting for a daughter who is touring Europe at the moment (until the 19th), and while I go back and forth to my apartment once a day most days, I read parts of this book last night and took it home with me this a.m. and then forgot to bring it back! Had some nit-picking to do, of the sort you are used to from me.

Cannot now tell you page number, but it is fairly early on in her Maine sojourn. She has just started with the Maid service. Footnote number 3: she says the government says the average maid pay is $223 per week and that this is $23 below the poverty level. So I add and come up with a poverty level of $246. Then she says her pay of $266 per week is therefore $43 ABOVE the poverty level. I make it to be $20 above. Are your books like mine?

At one or both restaurants, servers were generally forbidden to sit down, even when there were no customers. This strikes me as needlessly cruel, shortsighted, and self-defeating.

If you've got competent help, shouldn't you try to make their stressful and mind- (and feet-) numbing jobs as pleasant as possible? If a person goes home exhausted, doesn't that make it less likely that she will return? What do managers and corporations gain from that? They'll have to hire a new person who may not be as good as the person they lost.

From today's Frank Rich column in the N.Y. Times: "Dick Cheney, the president said, 'sets a good example for Americans who may share the same condition he has' about the need 'to take precautionary measures.' It never occurred to Mr. Bush that 43 million Americans have no health insurance to pay for a device with a price tag of $30,000 (exclusive of installation), or that most other Americans would have to battle their managed-care providers at length and perhaps fruitlessly to win approval for so costly a 'precautionary measure.'"

I want to join this discussion but I do not have the book yet--the list must be long at the library.

I just wanted to share what has always stuck in my memory from a macro-Economics course the first quarter I went back to graduate school at age 47. The professor basically said that studies show that people have a concept of what "economic class" they belong to--and this concept does not change much as their actual income changes. It is part of the way each of us pictures ourself.

That really hit home with me. I had just come out of 5 years where my husband and I started a business just when a recession hit. We were living on a farm in the middle of nowhere in a mobile home with his "factory" in the barn. We had negative net worth--had borrowed heavily--and basically lived on cash flow with no real income. But I was amazed to realize I still felt like we had the abilities to make it--and it never seemed hopeless. I still was comfortable to attend the garden club with some of the more prominent women in the nearby town who were considered wealthy. In other words, I didn't have the concept that I was poor, even though in an accounting sense, I was.

At the same time, in our business we were hiring sawmill workers and minimum wage people from the neighborhood. At that point they actually had more disposable income than we did. But they had the concept that they were poor. Some were second or third generation on wlfare. One signed his name with an X. Their trials and tribulations were endless.

I may write more about how we tried to help some of our employees and how frustrating it was. But what I want to say today is that the way you picture yourself in the economic scheme of things is very powerful--and it is one thing (there are many) that contributes to being able to rise about it or to getting stuck. Hope I get the book soon! Would you recommend buying it ? Marge

If you care to read it,here is a negative review of the book. I saw the Times article about the cost of the defibrillator and 43 million people don't have health insurance. Even those who have HMO's might be hard-pressed to get their insurance to cover the device - much less the surgery.

http://newsobserver.com/standing/collections/zane/800000023464.html

Linda - who has not read the book, but is reading your thoughts with interest

MARGE: Yes, I would definitely recommend buying the book, if you can't get it at the library, because it may be some time before it comes out in paperback.

Your comments were very intriguing. I never thought of it that way, but you are so right about what our perception of our economic status is. I really do think that would make a difference in how lower-income people eventually fare----Ehrenreich herself writes that one of the characteristics of the working poor that she met was the hopelessness they seemed to share.

WELCOME TO THE DISCUSSION! PLEASE JOIN IN EVEN IF YOU HAVEN'T THE BOOK YET!

RAMBLER: Another irony--so many new developers and planners have built wonderful, expensive suburban condos and luxury apartments, and businesses like MCDonald's, Pizza Hut, and some restaurant chains are moving right in those neighborhoods. The problem is, they cannot get help, because the would-be employees can't afford to live there and not that many of them can afford a car, either.

STEPHANIE: It sounds like you might be exasperated by what the author is writing. Do you think she puts the consumer, (employer, home owner) in a poor light? You, too, pedln?

PEDLN: About tipping. A group of us ( went to lunch one day at a fairly nice restaurant. Some of us ordered cocktails, some had dessert, and some didn't have coffee where others did. We had asked the waitress for seperate checks in front, but when she brought the bill she refused to divide it, saying that they were not allowed. You can imagine the mess we had trying to sort out who had what. As a result we decided not to tip at all, even though all of us had been generous tippers before. I understand from other patrons that the management has since emphasized that seperate checks are okay.

PEDLN AND MARY PAGE:

I have a cleaning person, who is part of a group of a Home Health and Housekeeping Agency. The lady who does my cleaning is paid $7.95 an hour, and yet the bill I get every month from the Agency bills me $22 an hour. To me this seems outrageous, and yet I'm told it is done all the time. I can understand the Agency sharing some, but allowing the person who actually does the work only a third of what they collect? Of course they gave a tremendous turnover, and keep complaing how hard it is to get "good help."

Lorrie

FOR EVERYONE:

On page 51, the author's very first sentence in this segment is "I chose Maine for its whiteness."

What, in your opinion, do you think Ehrenreich meant by this statement?

Lorrie

She makes it clear that she was intrigued by there being almost no persons of color there.

I think she wondered if this would make conditions better for the employees.

She found out it did not.

Lorrie, I agree with you about the pay your cleaning woman is getting, and would suggest that you hire her as an independent worker and pay her more. BUT . . . you would also have to pay your share of her social security and whatever the Home Health pays for her health insurance. Home Health is not grossing the difference between $7.95 and $22. If they gave her a raise, you too, would probably have a higher fee.

Regarding the "whiteness" of Maine. I agree with MaryPage that it dealt with demographics. BE thought she would have a better chance at jobs there, that were usually held by minority workers in Florida.

I'm not exasperated with BE, but I don't feel she does her cause any good by ridiculing the people she hopes (at least I hope she does) to change. This shows up more in the Maine section than in the first part of the book.

I have read the review, though I'm not sure the reviewer read the book.

"This dismal book, which chronicles a social critic's toe-dipping forays into the world of low-wage work, has become a national best seller...". If one surveys both fiction and non-fiction, I wonder in what sense the book can be considered a best seller? Even within non-fiction, where does it rank? The clerk at B&N had a little trouble finding it for me. And what does best-sellerdom have to do with merit anyway?

"She spent little more than a month in each location. This is tantamount to visiting Paris, Rome and Madrid and the passing yourself off as an expert on Europe." No, she made it clear on p. 10 that she is not an expert. And would a year in Paris, Rome and Madrid have made her an expert on Europe? Nope.

"Her reporting is so thin that we never learn about the working poor's long-term survival strategies...the ingenious coping mechanisms they have devised." Read p. 27, for Christ's sake! They have no long-term survival strategies or coping mechanisms. They live day-to-day, sometimes hour-to-hour. Enough!

Reviewers don't seem to be enthralled with this book, do they?! I have to agree that her brief time on these jobs seems barely adequate to draw any very firm conclusions. Also one of you pointed out an error in her math. Maybe she was a teensy bit in a hurry to get this piggie to market?

I too, found her sarcasm for patrons of the cleaning service to be out of place in the general study she purports to be making. And don't you think she went to Maine "for its whiteness" not only for ease in finding a job but also because she wanted to avoid completely any issues of race in connection with the point she is trying to make, e.g. whether ANYONE can make it these days working for minimum wage.

Well, I LIKE THE BOOK AND I LIKE HER.

So there too, already!

humph!

Several years ago my youngest child was in a college class taught by (Senator) Paul Wellstone. He brought in former students who worked for activist organizations to speak to the classwith the result that at the end of the school year my daughter dropped out to go work for ACORN -Assoc. of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

ACORN's goal is to empower the powerless, and at that time they were working to turn abandoned buildings into homes for the homeless and low-income persons. I have not followed ACORN's activities, and was glad when J. quit and returned to school a year later.

They do have a web site, see below, and are still involved in seeking housing for the poor.

http://www.acorn.org/who_are_we.html#accomplishments

Well, affordable housing does seems to be a monumental problem in this country and I admire BE for drawing attention to it. I wonder if she knew that when she set out on this project? Somehow, I don't think so... what do you all think? I think she found that out in the course of her "experiment"...

Maybe, before casting stones at Ehrenreich's methodology, we should all take minimum-wage jobs for three months. (Not living or eating at home, of course, nor visiting our friendly ATM.)

On the whiteness of Maine, Ehrenreich does mention that she thought it would be easier to infiltrate the low-wage workforce with no questions asked. I found it interesting that when she experienced classism because of her maid's uniform, she wondered if she had a glimpse of what it may be like to be black. None of the "isms" are good!

I was surprised by her disdain of the people whose houses they cleaned. Having been born with a decorating gene, I found her criticism of any form of decorating also surprising. I'm no Martha Stewart but I have drug home furniture and stuff for all of my years and fixed it, painted it whatever. My house is also full of books, in bookcases, stacked on floors, they are everywhere. One does not preclude the other.

Housing was a huge problem but I also see lack of time as a big problem. So little time to recuperate from all the physical labor, to rest, to fill up so one could be off and running the next day...let alone make any plans to escape this existence. These people are tired. My hat is off to her for being able to physically keep up even for awhile.

If this book does nothing else, it certainly points a finger at the lack of affordable housing. Not everyone will sit up and take notice, but perhaps the consciousness of a few will be raised. That's a start.

Jeryn , In answer to your post above, I really don't thnk BE knew what to expect, housing or otherwise, but she was certainly surprised by the bleakness of much of it.

Hey, everybody, these are some really interesting posts! I like the way you express your gut reaction to what's being said here.

RAMBLER: Thank you for a more clear-headed review of the reviewer who wrote so negatively about the book, and who seemed so condescending about the author. Yes, I wondered if he had even read the book, too!

JERYN: In fact, not all the reviews of the book were negative. The things that Kathereine Newman wrote in the Atlantic Monthly were quite nice, and in her other reviews the tenor was upbeat.

PEDLN: As a Minnesotan, I am a great believer in Paul Wellstone, and have voted for him ever since he ran around campaigning in his little green bus. Yes, I've heard of Acorn and have seen the really good things they have done herE.

PAIGE: Yes, a thought we haven't mentioned. The utter lack if enough time to do all the things they'd like to do, what with the sheer exhaustion that these workers have every day.

Lorrie

I find myself annoyed with BE's blanket condemnation on occasion. My Father owned a commerical construction company, which means that he had a good many low income laborers. I do agree with the previous discussion about class. I was always surprised at how many laborers came from the same family groups and extended families. They however did have coping strategies, although I am sure they would not have called them that. They lived out in the country on small pieces of land and at that time, could put as many old trailers, etc on one piece of land as they wanted. Now the county and state forbid it. But for a long long time, they all lived in trailers, etc. together. At least some of them were always employed and they tried very hard to have some sort of small gardens. I suspect life was easier for them then the urban poor. I have had maids and my Mother always had one. Her long time maid was her age and brought her children when she had them to work with her. Martha never wore a uniform and whoever came to the house, always came back and greeted her and asked about her family. When my Dad and then Mom died, Martha came and helped me and seemed as grieved as I was. When my children were born, she came unasked and volunteered to help me one day a week for a month. I tried to pay and she was offended. This was her gift to me.. So my experience with maids was quite different from BE

It's really worth noting the different classifications of the word "maid" used in those houscleaning agencies that the author writes about.

Years ago, many women living on farms and in small towns, had "maids." But they were never, ever, called that. These were known as "the hired girls," and were usually from the same areas as their employers, were treated as one of the family, and received board and room and a small salary. My grandmother had a "hired girl" who lived with them and worked as a helper to Grandma, who had to keep house for a husband and six sons. I can remember this good-natured girl who had an affection for my grandmother, and was treated with kindness and respect from the whole family.

Lorrie

I do not have the book yet but in an earlier post was welcomed along with any who do not have our books yet, Thanks, as I was thinking of how much an hour we make for a month based on a forty hour week if we only lived on our Social Secuity to live on. There are Senior's and veteran's who have worked all there lives and have to live on the streets. Talk about Nickled and Dimed.

What say you or will this be brought out later?

Ginger

Hi, Ginger:

You don't really have to have the book, because the subject matter is pretty general here, anyway, but it sure helps if you can read the author's experiences working for minimum-wage jobs. Yes, there is a growing gap in our society, some say. They say the void between the "haves" and the "have-nots" is growing wider every year.

Lorrie

I simply couldn't relate to the methods of cleaning that Ehrenreich described. No, or very little water???? All my life I've cleaned with lots and lots of soap and water, the hotter the better,(like the author's mother)and the idea of someone going around with a wipe here and a wipe there appalls me> Talk about moving germs from one spot to another!

Lorrie

Interesting post about the "haves" and the "have-nots," but I believe there's always been that divide. I've seen pictures of the homes of the Rockefellers and the Astors and the Whitneys and the Hearsts and the Roosevelts, etc...and the mansions in Newport and the mansions on the plantations of the south. Go back to Europe and the castles and estates of the wealthy and titled...and it seems there have always been "haves" and "have-nots." I wonder if instead of the gap widening, we in the U.S. don't have many more in the space in-between...and I don't know what you call that place...the "Middle Class"? or ???

š jane›

Do you watch AMERICA'S CASTLES on A&E Saturday mornings at nine a.m.? Amazing places.

Lorrie mentioned "hired girls" and I can't let this opportunity pass by. My mother's folks lived in a very small town up in Northern Wisconsin, and as the mother of seven children, Grandma usually had a hired girl -- usually a young girl from the country.

One night, Grandma and the hired girl were "sitting up" with a neighbor who was ill. The girl got sleepy and Grandma told her to go back to the house and go to sleep in Grandma's bed -- I guess it was the only one empty. Grandma ended up staying all night at the neighbor's but Grampa came home late and, not wanting to wake Grandma, undressed in the dark and crawled into bed.

That poor girl woke up in the morning, saw Grampa, and just cried and cried and cried. Grandma assured her that no one would ever ever know, swore the family to secrecy, and I never heard this story until I was an adult, living far far away from Hawkins, WI.

pedin, LOL

Maids.. The no water and wipe method is taught by one of the franchised cleaning services. Needless to say once I heard it, I never used that service. But all of the various franchises have different methods. They are a great convenience if you need something done in a hurry or have something large to do. When my mother in law moved to an assisted living center, her house was filthy. She had a maid, but the maid mostly talked to her and did not clean. I called in a service and they did the house in one day with me there to be sure. It looked wonderful when they finished and we could put it up for sale. BE seemed to me to have some real issues with being a maid. I found the resentment in the writing overwhelming and I am not sure why. It could have been the housing involved since that seemed truly remarkably awful. It always boils down to safe and affordable housing and the US is not doing their job there.

So many of you feel that the author expresses a great deal of resentment when she writes about the customers in the cleaning segment. I don't know why Ehrenreich was so much more bitter over the people who hired cleaning agencies than the corporate management of the chain restaurants where she worked. Could there be a small segment of class distinction left over from her "rebel" days of protest? On the contrary--I felt more resentment and exasperation for the worker Holly who hurt her ankle and refused to go to the emergency ward. Why? Even if the agency didn't have health insurance coverage, surely Workmen's compensation would have covered?

I didn't understand that part at all.

JANE: Yes, there has always been the the fact of the "haves" and the "have-nots", and we have all accepted this as the way it is, but lately do you not see a growing chasm between the middle class, which is slowly inching over into the "haves", and the rest of us? How many of us spend much of our time fretting over the ups and downs of the stock market, and more of it buying all the "stuff" that the advertisers have aimed directly at us?

PEDLN: I don't think our hired girl ever slept with Grandpa. She was almost 50, had varicose veins and a huge rear end. Still, knowing Grandpa's reputation.............................?

Lorrie

I suspect that, for conservatives, the real appeal of Welfare "Reform" is that it greatly increases the supply of cheap labor. A footnote suggests that about half The Maids' employees are former welfare recipients.

I am always leery of legislation whose backers dub it "Reform". They're just changing the rules; whether or not it's reform is a matter of opinion. But the "Reform" con seems to work. I'm sure many a Congresscreature votes for "reform" because he/she knows that, if they vote the other way, their opponent in the next election will holler, "Our Congresscreature voted against reform!"

My dictionary doesn't have cineast (top of p. 75), but a pederast is a lover of boys, so I suppose cineast is a lover of movies. Sometimes Ehrenreich's vocabulary is a bit show-offish (which is in my dictionary).

But I liked this: Ted tells her, "Cleaning fluids are less expensive than your time". She muses, "It's good to know that something is cheaper than my time, or that in the heirarchy of the company's values I rank above Windex". She's never ha-ha funny that I've noticed, but she's often clever and witty.

RAMBLER: You got it! I definitely find the author's tendency to throw these esoteric words at us very irritating. I find it patronizing and disrespectful to the readers. As we get more into the book, more and more of Ehrenreich's personality is coming through, and much of this book is also a mirror of her particular hang-ups.

Did anyone notice what a flop her attempt at labor rebellion was? This is something I have noticed all through this book so far, the apparent indifference these people have to coming together to protest their situations, and an unwillingness to come forward and be counted.

Lorrie

A cineast is a movie lover. Not someone who plays a lover in the movies, but someone who loves movies.

I got mad at glossolalia, but have to face the fact that I get angrier at myself for not knowing one of her words than I do at her for using it.

Lorrie, I hate to tell you this truth, because what I am about to tell you is illegal, but MANY companies like this prefer to pay out of their own pocket when an employee is hurt rather than report it to workers' compensation (Darlin, they got rid of the "men's" about 20 years ago). Then they lay off the employee. Say they do not need them any longer. If a workers' comp claim IS put in, they lay off the employee as soon as they feel they dare.

Employees know this and fear it very, very much.

Now I have told you something I know to be the absolute truth.

When you are poor, life is ugly as sin.

I can confirm the "lay-off after a claim is made to worker's comp". My son has run into it and a co-teacher was threatened with it some years ago. The business or company, whatever, is taxed at a higher rate once claims have been made, so some do try to prevent the claims with threats. Sue

I saw a program about Walmart last week and will tell what I remember (wish I'd taken notes). Walmart is the largest employer in the U.S. (did the program say "world"?), employing more people than the U.S. government, who is 2nd on the list. Roughly a million employees work for Walmart and turnover is close to 50 percent each year. The company opens a new store every two days. By 2004 (I think that's the year), they intend to open a new store every day. Growth is the number one way Walmart assures investors a profit. Location is very important, so there are many abandoned stores after someone decides a newer local location will work better. At present (I do remember this figure), there are 360 empty/abandoned Walmart stores.

---------------------------------------------------------------

I think it was an incredibly brave project BE undertook. Unlike standard "popular" books that sell the idea of a project throughout the book, BE's admittedly narrow and limited project is more like pure social science....where limitations are expected, admitted. Even BE's admitted personal biases are included, which are found in the best science projects. The aftermath of review/criticism is also an important part of social science. If this kind of science had funding, all this information would be critical in designing the next study.

But I'm laughing as I write that last sentence. "Soft" science, as in social science, rarely GETS funded. (Interviewing people isn't seen as important as a "real" experiment with mathematical results.) What an innovative idea that a journalist with media savvy take on this project!! I can almost hear the put-downs and laughing from the "real" scientists, though, and from other professionals who do undercover work.

Just think how many decisions affecting the lives of the working poor are made by people who think they understand the issues. A bit of history....the first psychosocial studies (late 40s) attempted to study racism. What's the importance? What's to know? asked critics.

betty

Affordable Housing

When searching for an apartment in Austin in January, I noticed two brand new, very large apartment complexes that advertized themselves as "Affordable housing...beautiful property, but no bells and whistles." What a departure from the competitive ads with long lists of amenities!!

MaryPage: I think my #148 and your #150 are saying the same thing re "cineast".

Sorry Lorrie, due to extra commitments I have taken on, I am joining this discussion late.

It is impossible to comment now on each post in detail, but some common threads will come up again, and that may be the time.

Hairy, Thank you for providing the link to the negative review. I read only part of it, too vituperative for me. I never heard of Pedar Zane (was that the name ??), is it a pseudonym, perhaps ?

I did read every word of the helpfully provided exchange of memos between BE and James Fallows. And I was a bit astonished by his approach -he seemed to be goading her. But her serves were wonderful. I know BE from her occasional essays in TIME, and I admire what she stands for and expresses. The same goes for Molly Ivins. I have her book "Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?" , a collection of earlier columns. Not a few Texans dislike her intensely.

She was recently in Boston; she has had a recent bout with cancer but told the interviewer she is feeling and getting much better.

Actually, the "genteel poor" have existed in Europe for centuries- just check the French novelists for a start, Emile Zola's GERMINAL, then go on to Balzac and Flaubert. But there have been enormous societal changes in our own lifetime, and we now know of poverty on a different, deeper, more desperate and more hopeless level. I personally have no doubt that the growing disparity between the haves and the have-nots will only exacerbate present conditions and lead to more gated communities (for those who can afford them) - an ever-widening gulf, in fact.

BTW Rambler, I read the NYT faithfully and saw the editorials you mentioned earlier.

Of course politics and policies come up in a discussion such as this, and it is not my intention to comment further on e.g. the BE/James Fallows exchange (about legislating remedies). But I had to smile at one comment : class.

Though ardently and perpetually denied, there IS a class system in this country, admitted or not, even if quite different from the centuries-old European tradition. Lamentably, what makes the difference is not intellectual capability but money alone - in sufficient quantities.

Right, Rambler. I was confirming your guess. You said it was not in your dictionery. It WAS in mine! You're much smarter than I; I would not have guessed it.

MaryPage: I'm not smarter than you, just cheaper. My dictionary is dated 1980, was bought for me by my late parents, and thus has sentimental value. Best wishes.

Glad to see class mentioned here again. I agree that it is about money alone. Think of the nouveau riche and then think of Holly, the young maid who was pregnant, ill and whose husband made her go to work anyway. Once there she hurt her ankle and kept working on one foot. Remember Holly?

Rambler, your old dictionary made me think of an old, oversized paper Atlas I have that I can't part with, though it is SO outdated. That atlas was with me when I found out I could drive myself all over the U.S., sometimes with a young son, later by myself. Wonderful memories.

I am horrified that so little REAL cleaning is done! Anyone else feel this way? I had Merry Maids for YEARS, and now I'm feeling as though I burned my money in the fireplace!

When I read about the little water, etc. I was glad that my cleaning couple uses my rags which get washed in my washing machine. That bit about "little water" is unnerving.

But how do you feel about salads and salad bars, now that you've had an inside peek into restaurant precedures?

I have not used salad bars for about 10 years now. I boil all of my drinking water, too.

In this area at least, Merry Maids is a franchise. Hence the franchise holder wouldnormally determine what cost-saving practices to adopt - how to dilute cleaning fluids, for example.

A ƒew years ago, I had representatives of 3 such franchises here, separately of course; each went through the house and over all kinds of details, made copious notes,a ll wrote proposed contracts.

I liked the Merry Maids plan.

But before I could decide, I was called away because of a family death. When I came back I called Merry Maids, only to be told - much to my surprise - that another close inspection of the house was required, to which I consented.

This second inspection of the premises produced a NEW proposed contract with figures significantly higher (!!!) than those only recently put down on paper-- I was appalled and I made other arrangements.

Wow!! Your comments are coming in so fast and furious, I have to try to catch up a little here. About some of the former posts:


MARY PAGE:
“Cineast”—there’s something about that word that i like. And surely, Mary Page, even you must goof once in a while on this “men’s thing.” Old habits die hard!

The fact that many employers pay out of pocket when some of their employees are hurt on the job saddens me. Surely these same employers don’t pay the long-term compensation due to some workers because of lingering back ailments, etc? Who pays that? Social Security disability would question why Workers’ Compensation wasn’t notified. And yet, SUE also says it is so.

BETTY GREGORY:
Even before reading this book, I had formed a person dislike of anything pertaining to WalMart. Living out in the country as we did at one time, I saw first-hand how a huge Walmart store can come into a rural shopping area and completely decimate all the local businesses. Yeah, yeah, I know, Progress and all that! But there’s something sort of repugnant about the whole process, in my estimation.. And now you tell us that sometimes these new stores are abandoned and left empty. What appalling waste! More on this WalMart thing later.

By the way, do you remember what the “affordable rent” was, in those new complexes you saw in Austin?

TRAUDE: WELCOME, WELCOME! It’s good to hear from you, late or no. I, too, thought the review of the book by Peder Zane was too vituperative, and I didn’t like the way the reviewer stressed more on personal aspects of Ehrenreich, rather than on the content of the book.

Like you and many others, I admire what BE is doing, and what she has done in the past. I am also a fan of Molly Ivins. I feel that both these women are presenting an unvarnished look at what life is really like for the working poor, and we can only hope that these efforts don’t simply become meaningless.

Your fear of impending “gated communities” is shared by many. I am so afraid that eventually one section of people will be living like that, completely insulated from the unpleasant sight of the working poor. Somewhat like the way our present politicians live?

TRAUDE, AND PAIGE:
I firmly believe that there is a class system in our country now exactly as you described it in Post #156:
“lamentably, what makes the difference is not intellectual capability but money alone–in sufficient quantities.”</> Well said!

Lorrie

PEDLN:
I've always avoided salad bars on general principal, mostly because I am reluctant to eat food that has been sitting out for long periods, regardless of what the temperature is.

TRAUDE:
That's an interesting story about your different estimates and appraisals from the different companies. Good heavens, did your house get that much dirtier between the first and the second assessment? Hahaha I don't blame you for refusing to sign.

Lorrie

Traude, I had a very similar experience with Merry Maids, and that is why I quit them after years and years. They wound up wanting MORE to clean my 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom condominium than they had my 4 bedroom, 4 bathroom house! I'm serious!

I got a Portugese immigrant winging it on her own. She did A BETTER JOB and cost less than half as much! Now I have moved, and again have a gal doing her own thing. She charges me $20 an hour and is here from one and a half to two hours on Fridays. Does wonders, and we are great good friends as well.

Lorrie, not on your life! I helped work to get the men out of there, and celebrated like mad when we did it! I NEVER FORGET!

About Wal*Mart, I suppose they are necessary to supply the masses of our poor workers such as these cleaning houses with affordable goods. For myself, I find them bleak beyond bearing. I LOVE cosy little shoppes with darling shopkeepers who can REALLY answer any question you might have about their excellent quality goods. Snob? I don't think so. I go to Wal*Mart to pay half as much for my eyeglasses and household supplies and metamucil, but it is a trip to a planet I really do not want to visit very often!

Each franchise cleaning company has their own systems and rules. They also are getting more and more expensive. I also would like to hear more about the affordable housing. In the central Florida area, there are long long lists for any sort of affordable housing. We have a great need for decent respectable housing that is safe. So many of the older developements are so full of nice people with druggie children who make the place unsafe. It is a true problem here. BE and Molly Ivins.. Well I do love Molly, but thus far am not quite so impressed with BE. The maid thing with her threw me and the Walmart simply infuriated me. Workers Comp.. WEll I know that there are companies who do exactly what others know. They cannnot afford to pay the fees involved. You would be surprised at the rates for some types of businesses. It is wrong, but it does happen. I think the working poor have more problems with illness than anything other single thing. I find the US system of medical care to be beyond cruel. It only takes one illness to a working poor family to completely throw them into abject poverty. They simply cannot afford to miss time at work. Next door to one of my stores, there was a small shop and the girl who literally ran it for an absentee owner got an abcessed tooth. Her husband took her to the emergency room in the middle of the night. She spent the next week being treated with all sorts of antibiotics and trying to work , but several times having to close and go home. The owner was notified and she lost her job.. Totally unfair, I tried to save her job for her with the owner, but no dice. She and her husband and child lost their apartment and ended up living in a beat up old travel trailer in a state park ( totally illegal incidently). If you are poor, dont get sick.

There you go. That's the way it REALLY is out there!

Saw an ad today that brings up something we haven't touched on yet -- those "Let us help you until pay day" services. The people who run them defend themselves by saying "But what would the poor do, if we weren't here?" I read an article a while back about how people get locked into those services with high interest, and end up paying much more than the cost of their original loan.

Stephanie, do you remember all those "Harry and Louise" ads back in 1992, 93, and all the scare tactics that got folks scared to death of anything that smacked of a govt. health care program. Well, we don't have the govt. making medical decisions, just the insurance companies. And in the meantime there are lots of folks falling thru the cracks who have nowhere to turn when they are ill or injured. The poor can't afford to be ill.

They just have to die. Miserably and in pain.

There was an expose on our local tv about those places charging up to 80% interest!!!!!

A lot of these people, really A LOT of them, cannot afford to have a bank account. So they go to check cashing places, often liquor stores, to cash them. The charge is sometimes TEN PER CENT of the paycheck! I am perfectly serious. I know this to be a fact.

Back to housing for a moment: In my Chicago suburb, builders are buying and tearing down perfectly good $180,000(?) houses in order to build castles that cost 2 or 3 times as much. Now obviously, poorer folks couldn't have afforded to rent, let alone buy, the $180,000 places. But what kind of society, with millions of citizens living in flophouses or hovels, allows decent housing to be razed so that a few can live in cathedrals?

I have a son who works for a big newspaper in the Bay Area of Ca and the cost of housing takes a huge chunk out of his significant pay check. Housing is a one bedroom apartment in Oakland in a neighborhood that is okay during the day and not so swell after dark. He looked and looked in San Francisco, just impossible. Looked at a wood shed with no heat in the backyard of a house, $l,200 a month plus first and last month's rent and deposit. It has grown impossible for young families to buy a home. The commutes to the area are growing longer and longer with families buying homes as far away as the central valley because the housing is at least doable although increasing in price rapidly also.

I've been my own Merry Maid most of my life and I think I'm more pleased about that as I read about the "professional Merry Maids!"

Me too, Paige! I love that--"my own Merry Maid"! We tried having a lady come in to clean once a week when I was working. It just did not work--forget now what all went wrong but I remember thinking that four able-bodied people [two adults, two teens] ought to be able to keep their OWN nest clean! Still think it was good for my kids' souls to have some work they were depended on to do.

Jeryn, I always told my sons that they were not doing housework but learning independent living skills! All three of them cook too, one is a real gourmet. His wife doesn't cook so it all works fine.

I just plain do not like housework. Never have cared for it. Preferred being a business woman. I'd rather read any day. That is another reason why, despite at least 20 people a year trying to "fix me up" with some old man or making bouncy remarks about how I'll get married again, I could not be DRAGGED to the altar now that I no longer have to clean up after anyone except myself! I have Rachel to clean for me, and otherwise only this crazy old broad to take care of.

MaryPage, I didn't say I like it, have just done it. I would much rather read! Love your attitude about not wanting to get married, it is your time and it sounds as if you are enjoying it to the hilt. Good for you.

Paige, you've got that right! These are the best years of my life! Sure I'd like to see my young, gorgeous husband again, and hug my babies again when they were small. But I have no desire to do it all over again, and about 5 minutes of my young children would suffice, just as about 5 minutes of the great grands does!

Rambler, I understand what you're saying about tearing down perfectly good houses to build a new one on the site. That happened in my son's old neighborhood in Maryland.

Another thing that bothers me are the escalating prices that are put on homes in areas once were considered older, less desireable, although not deteriorating, neighborhoods. I'm all for urban renewal and rejuvenation, but let's not price folks out of the market.

I've learned if I want to sleep at night, not to ask my children what they pay in rent or paid for their houses.

(addendum -- our local paper had an article saying the "average (?)" family pays $565 a month for communication services -- telephone, cell phone, pagers, etc.)

RAMBLER, AND OTHERS:


Apparently this affordable housing crisis in a national disgrace. In your estimation, who do you think is to blame? And can you see any future easing of this situation?


Speaking for myself and others in my building, who live in a really nice Senior building, owned by a corporation, we would like to feel a little more secure that this subsidy will continue indefinitely, instead of living in terror one year to the next that HUD may change its guidelines. We have people living here in their late 80's and 90's, perfectly self-sufficient, who have lived here for fifteen year or more, and who view the prospect of having to move out and into their children's homes with genuine dismay.

Lorrie

Lorrie: Well, it's not helpful to the current discussion, but for the lack of affordable housing I'd blame, for starters, the inventors of the automobile; Henry Ford, whose assembly lines helped make cars (no pun intended) affordable; and President Eisenhower, whose interstate highway system encouraged urban sprawl and thus discouraged inner-city housing development.

I really think the invention of the automobile, like certain other inventions, has been a tragedy for humankind. Without it, we might have streetcars and subways going in all directions. Factories and company offices would have little reason to remove themselves long distances from where most people live. Enormous amounts of forests and farmlands would have remained forests and farmlands. "Global warming" might be an unknown term and an unknown problem.

Our politicians aggravate the situation by keeping our gasoline prices at relatively tax-free levels that, I think, are easily the cheapest in the world.

But, of course, the cat is out of the bag now.

Well, you asked!

Is the lack of affordable housing in part due to more "haves" being able to pay more, thus driving up the cost. It seems that in the last two decades there has been an increasing amount of disposable income spread around an increasing amount of people. What used to be available to the "have nots" has been taken over by the "haves." One example might be older apartment buildings which have been made into condominiums.

pedln: Not only older apartment buildings--also older factories, warehouses, offices. I think the offices of now-defunct Montgomery Ward at the edge of downtown Chicago will become condos before long. This is not necessarily bad. Better that somebody lives in them than that they stand vacant. But this doesn't open up any housing opportunities for the poor.

How times change. When we were young, 60 years ago, couples lived in apartments, maybe with relatives, until perhaps they were 40. THEN, if they were lucky, they could make the down payment on a house. Now, couples routinely buy a house--often before they're married or even intend to get married. This, too, may not necessarily be bad.

It is interesting in that the inner city is becoming the place to live. They are converting old mills in New England to very fashionable condos. In town is the place to be. Walking and convenience are the bywords for the upward mobile and even the older people who just want to live in convenient places. Unfortunately this was once where the entry level and low income people used to live. I believe that every city over a certain population should have to devote a certain amount of their budget to supplying low cost housing. cheap and safe. Make rules for living there and enforce them. BE addressed this, but not exactly as much as I would have liked. I like someone else here have been in a position to see the check cashing services and it is venal and wrong. I also know or knew people when I owned my store who had no bank accounts. Just not enough money for that. I believe that the bank used by the companies should have to cash the checks without a charge. They are making money from the companies who bank there, so let them help out the employees. Once in my youth, I ended up as a bookkeeper in a large bowling alley and theatre complex. We paid in cash and talk about an all day thing. Try doing all of the paperwork and then going to the bank with the correct breakdown and then coming back and put it into envelopes, etc. Whew.. I found out how truly filthy money is..

Oh, Stephanie; when I was young and first working in construction, we always paid in cash as well. It WAS a trick figuring it all out.

I was paid in cash for my very first job clerking at the dime store. I distinctly remember my first pay envelope contained $14 and a few cents!

What went wrong with the low-cost housing experiments of the fifties and sixties? Metropolitan Housing Authorities highrises in poor neighborhoods held so much hope and promise but, by the seventies, were rundown, beat-up, roach infested firetraps. Still affordable, though. What happened?

I think Ehrenreich didn't get into the housing matter too deeply because she was in a hurry to get a job to pay for food or other expenses. In my view, that doesn't diminish her heroic efforts, and pretty much mirrors the situation of the really poor.

First you get shelter, however shabby. Then you get food or a job, whichever you need most urgently, depending on the money situation. Then you get the other.

Well think about this Please.

http://chantal_pitcher.tripod.com/>1929

I just finished this book, and could not put it down. Some of the outrages that got to me were: in Walmart, the employees are not allowed to swear, complain, or use "improper" language, not even while just speaking to each other! Some of the women for whom she cleaned houses treated her and the other workers like slaves. Without a hefty deposit on a room or apartment, some of these low-wage earners are forced to pay as much as $300 a week for a crummy room!

The book is horrifying, though it does have plenty of wit and humor. It certainly makes the "invisible" poor a little less invisible. I'll never look at waiters, cleaning people, gardeners, or clerks the same way again.

Don't you think there is some kind of built-in stigma in being a builder/contractor who builds "houses for poor people"? That, plus the reality, probably, of a builder/developer choosing the end of the market with the most profit potential. Builders are often in a rush during boom times, worrying that the market will slip and housing demand will decrease. I know there are builders who only build beyond the $500,000 price, but I'm talking of the average builders who are trying to stay afloat as the cost of lumber and other building materials continue to increase.

The Austin housing market went through a record boom time during the 70s and early 80s, then builders were caught off guard when the crushing recession of the mid 80s hit. I built a house in 1986 here and was fortunate to have found a deal for ONLY 16 percent. For another folder in SeniorNet, I looked up the numbers, but this is from memory....about 80 Austin builders out of 450 (550?) were still in business when the recession ended in the early 90s.

Of course, NOW, the price to build or buy a home here has been compared to the San Francisco area. Ironically, the massive high-tech layoffs from the larger companies (Dell, etc.) over the last 8 months has produced some optimism in the housing market....that prices may hold for a while. It is in this context...all of it... that I am trying to imagine what an Austin builder would say to the question, "Why are you not building afforable housing for the working poor?"

betty

The low cost housing of the 50-60's.. That is the high rise ( in most cases). They of course are the ghettos of the current day cities. What went wrong of course is no policing. Hardworking people moved in originally, but then the multigeneration welfare moved in and never moved out. Then the gangs came, drugs moved in and they are the most terrifying places on earth. Social workers and probation officers hate to go in some of them. They never received money to keep them in any kind of shape. They are simply a disgrace. There are an occasional few that form a tenants board and make rules and enforce them as to gangs and drugs. They form militias and do a good job and kick out offenders. But they are few and far between. I do agree that the working poor look for somewhere to live and the first and last months rent just murders them. Then they pay more for food since they get into these rooms where they cannot cook or go to inner city markets who charge more for food than the suburban ones. There is simply no easy answer that I see. However I owned several retail stores and I also had a rule.. "No Swearing... No arguing... No hangers on... No running down the store>> This was on duty of course. I still believe that is the minimum that a store owner should ask of someone they are paying to work

I finally finished Maine last night and have started Minnesota. I confess to being surprised she had smoked marijuana. Having never even been offered any or been socializing with persons who used it, I am always astonished to find it so widespread.

Not trying to be a goody-goody here; just telling the truth!

NORTHWEST: Welcome, welcome! It's good to see a new name in our posts, and hope you hang in there with us! I think we all share your indignation, and if only a few more people like you would express these feelings perhaps something could be done. I agree that after having read this book, I will look upon the "invisible" service people with a new light!

Lorrie

GINGER:

Thanks for the link. Yes, I think History agrees that the Stock Market Crash of '29 was the catalyst that started the Great Depression which I'm sure many of us remember.

BETTY GREGORY:
I might have known your response would be a measured, rational one, in reply to all the bursts of outrage that can be seen here. You make a good point as to what might motivate the builders, and I suppose it all boils down to what the market will bear. In that link above about mixed housing, Betty, what are your feelings on that?

STEPHANIE:
As a storeowner, I don't think the rules you set down were misguided or anything else an employee could object to. Sounds like you were a fair employer. It's a tragedy about the inner-city hi-rises. How could this have happened? I understand that in many areas they are demolishing these building--we can only hope they build something better for the people of low income.

RAMBLER:
There was a time when a young newly married couple would rent an apartment or house until they had saved up enough money for a down-payment on a new home, or, if they were lucky, maybe one of the in-laws helped them out. Nobody even thought of borrowing money to start this with---it was bad enough to assume a mortgage. Today it seems like they merely wave that plastic wand, and Presto! They have everything they want (not need) right now!

Lorrie

Ehrenreich says that the Maine nursing home was the first place to check her references. She must have fudged a little on explaining those references. Why would a woman from Key West be applying for a grungy job in Maine when the only legit references she could offer were in Florida, New York, etc.? In "Casablanca", Bogart tells someone (Sidney Greenstreet?), "I came to Casablanca for the waters". He's told there's no water within hundreds of miles, and says, "I was misinformed".

To the exent that they checked references, it sounds like, if there was nothing criminal in Ehrenreich's past, she's acceptable.

In re Minnesota: I'm not bothered by her use of marijuana, but then I've railed against the "War on Drugs" here and on other SN sites. I've never used maryjane either, but I consider the silly, phony "War" a terrible waste of money and law-enforcement manpower. Hey, there are dangerous guys out there who have nothing to do with the drug trade. How about giving them some attention?

I was born and grew up in Minnesota (Lorrie: the erstwhile Central High at 34th street and 4th avenue south), but I never liked it. Too straight-laced. Moved to Chicago as soon as I had the chance. I was impressed and fooled by the fact that Illinois elected a governor named Stevenson and a Senator named Paul Douglas. Only later did I learn that the reactionary Democratic machine, figuring Truman had no chance in 1948 and would drag everybody down, threw those liberals the nominations, never imagining that they would actually win.

Rambler, I am all for legalizing drugs as well, as you have probably noted from my own posts. Yet I hate them and hate the thought of them. My stance is based entirely on good, common sense about the most cost-effective ways to curb drug usage. Banning them is the worst choice.

I couldn't resist copying this remark of Ehrenreich's when I peeked ahead in the Evaluation: The problem of rents is easy for a non-economist, even a sparsely-educated low-wage worker to grasp: it's the markit, stupid.When the rich and poor compete for housing on the open market the poor don't stand a chance. The rich can always outbid them, buy up their tenements or trailer parks, and replace them with condos, McMansions, golf courses, or whatever they like. Since the rich have become more numerous, thanks largely to rising stock prices and executive salaries, the poor have necessarily been forced into housing that more expensive, more dilapidated, and more distant from their places of work."

Lorrie

RAMBLER:

During the brief time we lived in the Chicago area, I remember vividly the eyesore at the time that was called the Cabrini Homes. Is that still as evil as it was, or hopefully, was it ever torn down and replaced with decent housing? I believe it was on the near West side.

Lorrie

Several months ago, maybe more than a year, there was some legislation being discussed that would evict drug users from public housing. Then there was a hue and cry about how it would affect innocent family members, particularly children. Does anyone remember what the outcome of the legislation was?

We just had a very sad case this week in my community. An elderly man, living alone, died because of the heat. The windows were NAILED SHUT, there was a fan in the bedroom -- unplugged, although the electricity was on. No air-conditioning. This is SE Missouri, with the heat index well over 100. Nailing windows shut is apparently a common phenomenon in poorer neighborhoods where the elderly, especially, are concerned about crime.

Thanks for the welcome, Lorrie. I'm pretty new to Seniornet, and am just discovering some of the wonderful discussions here. I was really glad to see this provocative book, which I had just finished reading, on the list.

Hannette

HANNETTE:

It's always great to see a new poster come in and join us, and the fact that you have the book in hand makes it that much better. I'm really enjoying this discussion, we are getting all kinds of comments, from the interestingly varied former jobs that some of us once held, right up to where we can see what the lack of decent housing is doing to people all over the country. Hang in there, Hannette!

Lorrie

Did you get the feel of the author's shock at not being treated as a fully cognizant human being while being HIRED for a job? They get called in for orientation, rules are discussed and their taking the job seems to be taken for granted, but never voiced. No one says, okay, you passed all of our tests and we are prepared to offer you X$ per hour for xx hours per week doing ---------. Will you accept this and come to work for us?

I get a sense of herded animals more than of individual persons.

Minnesota. Well I did not see anything particularly wrong with Walmart as far as employers go. Drug testing is so commonplace for a variety of reasons. Actually it is a deterrent in that many casual drug users will not apply seeing the drug testing rules. That does help. I dont have anything against Mary Jane, but at the same time, people on anything ( including alcohol) are horrible in a retail situation. You need your wits about you to help the customers and you wont have it when on anything ( including some antidepressants). The break room sounded fairly awful at Walmart, but I suspect that varies from store to store. The use of tapes to train is not unusual. Provides a more even balance to the training process. If one of the dot com millionaire really wants to help the world.. They could do transitional housing for the poor. A place to stay with no up front and back months anything until the poor can look and perhaps find some apartment or rooms. Perhaps old fashioned rooming houses that would be safe, clean and inexpensive would work. Who knows. It needs however to be studied.

The deposits seem to be the biggest bar to most struggling poor. We are talking about people with NO cash from week to week; people who cannot afford to eat properly.

If I were to manage a new set of affordable housing for the poor, I would charge $10.00 per month more than the set rent per month until such time that X amount of deposit had been accumulated on the books for that tenant. Then I would LOWER their rent by that $10 per month, and let them know that if they leave the premises in pristine condition, they will receive that "deposit" back, which they could then use as a deposit for the next place they go to live.

That's an interesting solution, MaryPage.

What do you think would be the way to handle those who don't pay the rent, who have troublemakers in their families living there, who don't keep up the place? Can you have rules about that to make others safe and still not infringe on the renters' civil rights?

Landlords have to have some recourse to deal with those who don't pay their rent or who damage property. Some states have laws stating how many months must pass before one can evict a tenant, and that describe the eviction process.

But renters have rights, too. Not too long ago right here on SeniorNet someone posted that her apartment was subject to inspection. Because she is disabled she has extra equipment in her apartment. She was quite concerned because the inspector deemed her apartment to be "cluttered" because of the equipment. It's a shame one's privacy is compromised in situations like this.

Pedln...it's easy to see how hard it is to make rules that take in every consideration. There's also the problem of someone not paying the rent, doing damage to an apt and then the landlord not being able to recoup the expenses involved in restoring that place back to being a livable one. This has to make the rent for everyone else go up to pay for the negligence/damage of others, I assume.

A column on today's N.Y. Times op-ed page is titled, "The Real Test of Welfare Reform Still Lies Ahead". It points out that "...it is premature to assume" (from various favorable statistics) "that the 1996 law has been a successful experiment. Five years is a short time for testing a substantively new social policy...". And, of course those were years of an "extraordinary economic boom".

The cheese will get binding if we have a serious recession (which we already seem to have in much of the high-tech sector). Layoffs are making headlines on an almost-daily basis.

I doubt that many of the laid-off will seek the grungy jobs that Ehrenreich had--unless they're desperate to deal with credit card debt or a mortgage. But, if things get really bad, they're certainly not likely to hire Merry Maids, which will increase the stress at the bottom levels.

Question: Does Ehrenreich take "a break" between her self-imposed assignments near Key West, in Maine, Minnesota? I suspect that, between assignments, she went home for awhile to rest up and get needed nourishment of all kinds. I doubt that she went from one assignment to the other without intermission.

She is very, very clear about having already done Maine when she does Minnesota, and she did Maine in the autumn and Minnesota the following Spring.

I have followed with interest the housing problems... We used to rent out a house in the country... 3 bedrooms... good plumbing fixtures... furnace but no A/C... for $300.00 a month We asked a month's rent in advance.. But the last young couple...with 2 children didn't have that much ahead even though both were working.

The girl lost her job, after 3 months at Walmart, for smoking pot in the break room... The boy couldn't get up in the morning to be at work on time... so he lost his job. In the dead of winter... I paid their electric bill... filled the fuel oil tank for heat... because I felt sorry for the children...

To shorten the story I asked them to move March 1st... And before they did they broke every window in the house, made large holes in the walls, stole the new water heater, left 3 old refrigerators that cost $40.00 each to haul to the dump... and stuffed the drain full of diapers.

That is why landlords have to charge high deposits and rents... and that is why there has to be drug testing...

It would take 7 or 8 years to recover the cost to put the house back in liveable condition. and this was about the 3rd irresponsible couple to rent the place. . So the house will be used as a burn lesson for the local volunteer fire department and we' ll demolish the rest and haul it to the landfill.

Pat, I had something very similar happen to me when I rented out a house I once owned in Jay, New York! Eerie, how similar! My experience was in 1971. I later sold the house and said I would NEVER again be anyone's landlord!

Oh...shiver...you guys are bringing back memories of the worst 30 days of my life. I moved from Berkeley, CA, to Portland, OR, in September, 1993. When I walked into the office of the Portland apartment complex on move-in day, the manager said the existing tenant refused to move out of the unit I'd chosen. The only other vacant unit was not physically accessible to me. (The tenant had been scheduled to move out 15 days earlier, but kept asking for one more day, then one more day, then finally said he wasn't moving.) Mayflower was scheduled to deliver my furniture, etc., in 2 days.

This story could go on and on, but I'll jump to the end and say that I did move in, in about 4 weeks. The business owner of the apartment complex took the tenant to court, but the guy moved out in the middle of the night four weeks later, right in the middle of the court proceedings.

I spent the 4 weeks in a nice hotel with a very sick cat, Pookie.

In the meantime, Mayflower had lost my household goods. They were finally located and arrived six weeks after the original arrival date....2 weeks after I moved into the apartment. The driver of the van said he was having coffee with another driver in Kansas City and the other guy mentioned a small shipment to Oregon that had been sitting in his Kansas City warehouse for 5 weeks. How it got to Kansas City, nobody knows.

betty

Nightmare material, only real stuff!

Yes, we have heard it here about the irresponsible, not-so-clean renters who seem to delight in trashing a place when they move, but on the other side of the coin, what about some landlords? You might find this article revealing: (I'm posting it in its entirety this once because I don't want anyone to simply pass over any link)

Story entered Tuesday, 08/25/1998 NEWS REPORT The good, the bad and the ugly rentals Sometimes landlords move tenants into run-down properties. By JONATHAN MAZE of The News@Sentinel

The difference between what Neighborhood Code Enforcement sees as a good landlord and a bad landlord is simple.

A good landlord makes sure a home isn't violating zoning ordinances, complies with minimum housing standards, screens tenants and keeps in touch with NCE on any problems.

A bad landlord doesn't.

"They're just someone who doesn't want to do that," said Chris Rasor, Neighborhood Code's legal assistant. "They're just in there drawing rent from the property."

The differences seem obvious, but separating bad from good landlords is difficult for people looking to rent, and nothing in current city law makes that distinction or keeps the worst landlords from renting.

Rather, rental property owners with negative histories can continue to rent property until they've sold or abandoned it.

Such landlords have mastered the city's code enforcement system. They hold off the department for years before the promise of criminal charges either prompts a repair, a sale or an abandonment.

While many of those properties are sold to well-meaning people who want to repair them, others go back on the rental market, and NCE must deal with another person. "It is just an ongoing process," said Ed Griffin, NCE's enforcement manager.

That process is costly -- to renters who must live in poor conditions or with the threat of eviction, to neighbors who must live next door and, finally, to the taxpayers

A good business The city has different types of landlords, from small investors who own one or two properties to large operations that Rasor calls "professional landlords."

Often, such landlords buy properties in poor condition under contract for little or no money down, or at a tax sale.

Buying these properties can be good business. The city has a handful of people who own dozens -- sometimes hundreds -- of properties purchased when they're run-down. Bought at a low price, those homes are rented, and sometimes a profit can be made in as little as a year.

"There are a lot of these bigger landlords who don't seem to be responsible," said Councilwoman Dede Hall, R-5th District. "They're getting bigger. It's a lucrative business."

Sometimes, these are absentee landlords who do little if anything to improve the property other than to keep it from being condemned.

One example code officials cite is Dennis Nidlinger. Considered one of the more notorious landlords in Fort Wayne, he and his wife, Sherry, have been ordered dozens, if not hundreds, of times to repair properties. On at least 19 occasions, those orders ended in a courtroom.

One of Nidlinger's properties is on 807 Huestis Ave. Currently up to code, the building had been condemned on and off for four years.

Starting with two minor violations in 1993, the building deteriorated -- two years later, part of the building was condemned when inspectors found 14 violations, including rat, mouse and dog waste, a leaking roof, plugged toilet and dangerous electrical outlets.

Months later, more parts of the building were condemned, again with electrical problems, rats, mice and roaches.

After two years of letters and inspections, the house was brought to code in May 1997.

"That's where the system breaks down," Hall said. "These are the properties that just signal 'Hey, nobody cares about this neighborhood.' "

But some property owners say neighborhood code problems usually arise when some tenant gets angry at the landlord -- bringing Neighborhood Code officers and their checklist of violations.

One property owner, Jerry Tyler, said some tenants will remove the smoke detector -- a city ordinance violation -- then call the city to complain. The landlord is liable in such cases.

Others say minor code problems can close a house, and that NCE targets rentals. "Neighborhood Code is nit-picky to landlords," said Jeff Radabaugh, owner of Premier Rentals.

To that, Rasor scoffs.

"We only go out on a complaint basis," he said. "I don't think we pick on any certain people."

Lorrie

People are people, whatever their labels.

Robby

Yeah, but some people--landlords or tenants--can accurately be labeled jerks, or worse.

When we moved from one apartment to another, my mother would go on on a housecleaning blitzkrieg, scouring everything from floors to cupboards. She left the place far better than we found it.

This is why I do not rent my apartment. I AM TO OLD FOR THE HASSLE.

Ginger

Rambler, I always did the same thing as your mother.

Housing.. See how even an evenly grouped bunch of people cannot figure out what or how to do housing for the poor. There are good and bad tenants and landlord. We owned rental property, but have sold it since we could not deal any more with the sort of tenants, we got. The last straw was an ethnic situation where the tenants used some horrible form of oil that stunk up the entire house. They moved in 11 people extra in a four bedroom house and lied about it. The put stars on the ceiling in a bedroom which could not be removed. They never mowed the lawn or took care of any of the outside.. Sigh.. So we evicted them and sold the house. Just too old for that. Our older son however has fouvr rental properties. He has good tenants in 3 and a habitual check bouncer in the last one. However the guy always makes good on the check,,, he has a tremendous job as a weather man for a tv station and keeps the house up beautifully. He seems to just not have any idea of how to spend money. Walmart. or any retail actually. You can have a fairly high powered retail job and never be permitted to sit down when you are on duty. Years ago I worked for a brief time in a jewelry department. We were required to wear all black outfits and when we reported to work, the manager of the department would put on what jewelry they thought we should wear that day. It was sort of fun actually, but nowadays there would probably be complaints.

Stephanie, there shouldn't be complaints about what jewelry to wear -- for advertising purposes. I think whereever one works, he or she is a representative of that place, be it commercial, government, etc. And the employer has a right to a have a say in dress expectations, as long as they are not unreasonable, obscene, or unsafe.

I think getting to play dressup with the jewelry might be fun. Better than marching around Wal-Mart making sure you don't hold your mouth wrong.

I will tell you this, BH had it dead right when she said she thought for months about going to Sacramento but decided not to because she heard about heat and allergies. This is when she chose Minneapolis for her selling job. I live in the Sacramento area and it is very hot. If one lives here long enough, the saying goes, one will get allergies. I do have them year round, in my tenth year of allergy shots. I would choose Minneapolis too if given a chance...

I'll join the ranks of those who at one time had a tenant from h---! When I remarried, I had a little house to rent but my very first tenant proved to be such a total jerk, deadbeat, and destructive to boot that we just turned around and sold the place after he moved out. He left the doors wide open, the key hanging on a nail in the kitchen. There were holes in the walls and several unpaid utility bills reverting to the owner--ME! Could have been worse--no windows broken!

There's obviously two sides to the affordable housing difficulties! The few deadbeats and vandalistic types destroy the reputation of low-income tenants in general.

I like the idea of the old-fashion rooming house but not sure such places exist in today's world. Those motels that specialize in renting by the week are probably the closest thing?

Jeryn, I remember being stuck in Tenn. When my car messed up it was suggested to go to a Boarding house and I did OH the food was so great I could have stayed the rest of my life but alas the car got fixed and I moved on. I for got what they call them now but they are very expensive so I got in on the ground floor. No renter's for me.

Sounds like a Bed-and-Breakfast, Ginger! Now THAT'S classy but a bit out of the league to meet the definition of "rooming house!" <BG>

Well, now that we have pretty well covered the subject of renters and landlords, I think it's proper to move on to the section of BE's book about her WalMart stint.

PAIGE: Thank you for the mention of my home state. As a Minnesotan, naturally I was more than interested when Eherenreich wrote about our local WalMart. In this building where I live, a planned bus excursion every month is offered to go shopping at WalMart, among other places, and many of my neighbors and other residents love these trips. I never go, for the reasons I had mentioned before, one of which is how, everywhere they go, this giant gobbles up all the local competition.

Have any of you wondered if WalMart has taken any legal steps to silence this author? She waspretty derogatory, but I don't know if that would be sueable? I do know that in their present ads on TV, they are stressing what a wonderful place it is to work!

JERYN, PAT W. AND ALL YOU OTHER ERSTWHILE LANDLORDS:

Some of those experiences sounded like, as Jeryn put it, "tenants from H-". I am beginning to think that my father was lucky. He rented out apartments, and rarely had a bad tenant. I think the reason for that was because all his rentals were near the campus of the University and he accepted no one but married graduate students and assistant professors. Perhaps. I don't know.

Lorrie

In defense of Walmart... Last Friday... I made a trip there to purchase an ink cartridge... which cost less there than Staples or Office Max6th year with Walmart... was greeted at the door by my neighbor up the way... and chatted about her job... said she was starting her 6th year with Walmart and when the lifting in the "Pots and Pans" got too much, they assigned her as greeter... )Oh by the way she is 2 months younger than I.)

She said most of the people there have worked more than a year and the summer kids come back each year for the regulars to take 1/2 pay vacations... even though the regulars may work only 20 hours a week through the year

Pat, that's interesting to hear about the inside from someone who works there. So even the part-timers get a part-pay vacation.

Does anybody know anything about Walmart's stock plan for its employees? I wonder if you have to be full-time, and how much it would cost them to participate. I've been told they have a good plan.

Also, what is the breakdown of part-time/full-time employees? In Missouri WalMart is tied with the Post Office for being the largest employer, but I don't know if that's full-time equivalents or not.

The Walmart nearest to me is about 15 miles south of me so I don't get there too often. They don't have a greeter there anymore. Just something that yells something at you from the top of the entrance. They do have a good by person who I guess is making sure you don't forget to pay for the stuff you are removing from the store. I don't know how it is to work there but a few days ago I ran into a retired person who had worked in K-Mart for 30 years. We seem to have more K-marts than Walmarts.

PAT:

That's something that not too many of the big chains do----pay half-pay for part-time employees. That's nice to know, I was always under the impression that most employers prefer to hire more part-time employees so that they can avoid any of the fringe benefits like that.

Lorrie

It might be just a local thing at our Walmart... but Rita said that they have a low turnover in employees and there is a waiting list.

The Mall across the highway loses a lot of their employees because no one there gets more than 20 hours... except management... and no benefits for part-timers.

I went out to the local Walmart today and talked with the manager. He was most pleasant, but did not have a lot of info. First of all, he had just returned from vacation and had not had a chance to check his mail. He had never heard of Nickel and Dimed or Barbara Ehrenreich.

About the stock plan: he said that associates could buy at market, but without trade fees. After they had invested a set amount, which he would not specify, the company will match whatever the employee invests. (I wonder how many can afford to invest! ! )

When asked what his store had done for the community he pointed to the banners showing how many thousands of dollars had been donated to Cardinal Glennon and St. Louis Children's Hospital the past several years. Also, he said several assoicates volunteer their time to work at community events, such as Special Olympics. There is a WalMart Foundation and he mentioned $10,000 donations it had made to the schools here and another nearby location.

When asked if Associates could rise to manager level he said he had graduated from U. of Texas with a degree in Business, and had been with another company before coming to Walmart 16 months ago. But yes, associates can and have risen to manager level. He mentioned one who started in maintenence and is now managing a store in Chicago.

I am going out of town tomorrow, but if anyone is interested in gathering more info, he gave me a few phone numbers:

1- 800 - Wal-Mart (Customer Service

i - 501 - 273 - 4000 Ask for Media Relations

When I asked for the ratio of full-time to part-time employees he said he could not give me that information.

More about Wal-Mart, when you think you've seen everything. No comment.

http://www.semissourian.com/story.html$rec=35912

It is very very common today to have part time employees. There are a number of reasons, some nice, some not so. Many stores do not pay benefits to part time, but others do. Home Depot even includes the part time in their stock program, which is extremely generous. Sams, which is of course Walmart as well has a generous employee stock program and makes a real thing out of the employees being the owners. Our local Walmart also has no problems filling out their help with retired people. They want the part time and fill the openings quickly. BE seemed to want some things from a store, that is just not practical and I had problems with her decided bias about straightening the shelves. My husband worked for a large retail company in the home office and out on the road for many years. To this day in any store, he automatically fronts merchandise and straightens when he is in any store. Its like a twitch.. He doesnt even know he does it.. So I have problems with BE's complaints about folding, etc.

I did not detect her complaints, but the impression came over me that she really got into the folding and straightening and putting away, etc., and came to think of that section of Wal*Mart as her very own kingdom.

As a Senior, I can see the attraction of getting a part-time job at a nearby WalMart store, where the fact that I wouldn't be getting health insurance or wouldn't be with them long enough to qualify for stock options wouldn't be all that important. It's a practical way for seniors to implement their low incomes, and the fact that they don't have to live on those wages is immaterial. But doesn't this hurt the full-time worker?

Here are more links to this giant chain. Some of them are bitter tales, the last one, in the interest of even-handedness, is a fairly accurate statement of WalMar's worth:

http://www.rtmark.com/more/walmart.html

HOW WALLMART STRIPMINES

Suit against Walmart

Trash story

Pro WalMart Facts

Lorrie

Lorie, Thank You as I have been thru all your clickable's and it does make a difference how I feel aboout Walmart's.

To me made in America does make a difference to me as in the long run who will be able to buy product's made oversea's. Not American's laid off. I did see this coming as our workplace's moved oversea's so we shall see what is in the wind so to speak. NOT good I am thinking.

That Wal-Mart slogan appears on p. 185 and probably elsewhere.

Having observed, off-and-on, years of annual reports and the T-shirts worn by employees, I think it's safe to say that nearly all companies claim that their "people make the difference". It means absolutely nothing.

Rambler, I agree. It seems just part of the marketing, a cliche`. Also a motivator for employees, makes them feel they are more a part of the business than they really are, perhaps.

Hi, All, and welcome, Northwest, I could not put the book down, either, as I, too, have done many of the things she talks about, waitressing, living in a motel, working two jobs at once, in retail, etc., etc., and some she has not, too. I have loved reading your stories about your varied jobs, aren't you all proud of them? I am, I think it makes you stronger to have done a variety of jobs at any level.

Wal Mart was not the first with the stringent rules, way back in the mid 60's I would get off from teaching school and rush to the "Downtown JC Penny's" where I worked from 3:30 till 9 pm each night, starting in "Ladies Better Sportswear" and working up to "Better Coats." We did not have a dinner break, were never allowed to sit down once the entire time, and constantly were admonished to "look busy," even if it meant rearranging clothes we had just rearranged, and had to put a Batman's "Joker" like smile on and greet every customer personally. (Frankly I think some of our larger more tony retail stores could use just a tad of that discipline today).

That's the first time I ever saw a person eat Vienna sausages in a can, cold, likewise baked beans cold from the can sneaked in the dressing rooms when the Floor Manager was not around.

---

This book, because of my own associations, blew me away, and one of the things I most was stunned by was the concept of "tunnel vision," which I had heard of but not understood as a syndrome. This author with her PhD, found it in her waitressing job (page 48) and in her job as a maid (wonderful description of it on page 106:)

....one of the symptoms is a bad case of tunnel vision. Work fills the landsacpe; coworkers swell to the size of family members or serious foes. Slights loom large, and a reprimand can reverberate into the night. If I make some vacuuming error...I can expect to spend part of my evening reviewing it and rebutting the reprimand...Whoa, girl, time to get a grip!

I'm wondering if you all were aware of this syndrome at all before she mentioned its manifestations? It stunned me, and so did some of her other conclusions.

---

And just to make the Point Counterpoint complete, I hate to say it, as I see many of you dislike Wal Mart, but I love Wal Mart and am a true Wal Mart junkie, because to me it represents American enterprise and retail and is not so different from the "I can get it for you wholesale" mentality long present in some of our larger urban areas. Long before Burlington Coat Factory or the Outlet Mega Mall there was a coat wearhouse where, if you "knew" somebody, (and everybody did) you could get a coat or dress or whatever wholesale.

And....jeepers, I hate to even say this one, too, I do have maids, and have employed in the past Merry Maids, but I figure, every job is honorable, and most of them who have worked for us have said flat out they would not care for my job as a field hand ("I couldn't do that") I guess there are, like all things, differing circumstances and opinions on everything.

I must admit I was startled at the large numbers of people appearing to live in cars, the Restaurant hostess, etc., now that I have not done and hope I don't have to, either.

ginny

Hey Ginny, Long time, no see any comments. missed you. I once saw ( I think it was) 60 minutes segment about a woman in Los Angelos, who was medium upscale, but had lost her house and lived in her car. It was amazing. She talked about places to shower ( the Y, since she stillhad her membership), etc. Fascinating segment, that gave me nightmares for weeks. I did not know until that moment that this was a terror of this middleclass woman. Amazing what some small thing will bring out. Tunnel Vision. Good heavens, I have always assumed that everyone has this. It comes as work ethic when you think of it.

GINNY!!!

It's so good to see your name, and Welcome, welcome!!

Tunnel vision--how true, and what you wrote aboout how slights can loom so large, and the slightest reprimand be blown way out of proportion.

It seems that we are all aware of the "shortcomings" of this giant corporation, but there is one thing all through this book that really keeps nagging at me. Where in all this recounting of WalMart's mistreatment of employees is any attempt to form a Union? In spite of the underlying reason of non-existence of affordable housing, what they pay is horribly insufficient, and as far as I can see the only recompense these people have is to organize. Minnesota has always been a labor-friendly state; our teachers' union and firefighters and police unions are some of the strongest in the Nation.

Having worked as a union steward for some years, I can vouch for the effectiveness, pro and con, of what organized labor can do.

Lorrie

I don't mean to sound preachy here, but the teachers and the fire-fighters and the police are highly skilled. If they threaten to withdraw their services, society is in a bind.

But if retail clerks threaten to withdraw their services--well, there are usually lots of other potential retail clerks filling out job applications. So I think that initiating union activity, let alone urging a strike, on behalf of retail clerks is much more chancy.

But skill is not the only key. Unity is often the key ("Solidarity Forever"). In the steel mills and the mines, the union workers not only had the (often, rare) skills or courage, they were united and, in a strike or strike-threatened situation, wouldn't budge.

More importantly, they typically had a strike-benefit fund that would enable them to put food on their tables for the long haul, and employers knew it. None of this is usually available to folks in the situation that BE describes. I could say more, but that's enough for now.

On the subject of retail clerks organizing, joining a union, is the "tunnel vision" described a big block to that happening? The workers are so consumned with just surviving, the thought of organizing is probably pie in the sky to them. It would take energy and time they do not seem to have. Each day is such a challenge, especially for women with children. When they finish their work day, they come home to another fulltime job with no help.

Bh's description of having to look busy even when not is certainly true in retail but in almost any job it can be true. I worked retail twice in my life, once as a young girl in college. Later, partime when my children were small. Both jobs were with an upscale department store and there was certainly a dresscode. The first time was in the late 1950's and black was the color preferred by management to be worn by everyone. Nothing sleeveless ever. When we were not busy, it was fold and refold. Service was the key factor then and the customer was always right, no matter what. That has certainly all changed, it is very difficult to get anyone to help you in a store these days. We also had to know alot about the merchandise we carried, such as fabrics, how certain labels ran sizewise, what would go with what and to run back and forth to the dressing rooms bringing customers other sizes, colors, etc. It's been a long time since I have had that experience as a customer, except at Nordstroms.

PAIGE, AND RAMBLER:
Yes, I do believe that the "tunnel vision" syndrome is a barrier to these people's hopes of ever doing anything about the conditions where they work, short of quitting. Organizing a union would seem like an insurmountable task to people so burdened with simply making a living, and the employers certainly don't help, with their restrictive and negative brain-washing on the subject.

Must it all seem so hopeless? What are your thoughts on this?

Lorrie

What? Have you nothing more to say? Where is everyone? I will admit that, because of the brevity of the book, that we won't need nearly as much time to finish the discussion on "Nickel and Dimed". So I would ask you now to tell us what your feelings are about the book, in whole, and what you think of Ehrenriech's summation?

Lorrie

She has done this country a great service, as she has created a very readable book about a very real problem. Much, much better than some dry research paper.

I feel poor, but not THAT poor. I am so fortunate.

I see no need to close down this site, if that is what Lorrie may be thinking of. Is there some urgency here? Who knows, one of us may have a thought this week, or next. I am not trying to be funny; I just see no point in promptly closing sites like this. Are we on a tight schedule?

Ah, RAMBLER, no, no, no! I merely meant that, because we had come to the final part of the book, that we could use the rest of the discussion to talk about the author's intent, her summation, so to speak, and hw we felt about the book as a whole.

We usually allot about a month for a full discussion, but that doesn't mean we close it down precisely on the 31st day. As long as we have people, like you, interested enough to post their feelings, we keep it open. I certainly hope that you will keep contributing. I have come to enjoy your sometimes pithy, but always interesting remarks in whatever book we happen to be discussing.

This whole Minnesota experience has fascinated me, probably because I live here. I found particular interest in the many footnotes that the author inserted, especially about how secretive WalMart is about what EXACTLY they pay. It reminds me of a time, during the late depression when any kind of a job was so hard to find, that I was hired to report to work in a flashlight battery place. I was so grateful to have a job, any job, that on the third day I was there I asked a co-worker, "What does this job pay, anyway?" Today's hirees would be appalled. hahaha

Lorrie

Oh dont close this. I love hearing all of the opinions that vary so much. I grew up in a strict non union family ( my Dad just raved on and on about unions, he owned a commercial construction company and had very strong opinions). I do feel however that store clerks would probably benefit from a union, but in any sort of unskilled work, this would be hard to start. The secrecy of pay extends on all levels as far as I can see. Nothing to do with low pay, everything to do with egotism. I would love to hear about anyone who knows anything about attempts to provide safe secure inexpensive housing. Especially as it applies to older women who may be alone. I noticed in Orlando, that the Salvation Army has apartments. They are supposed to be for the elderly who have little if any money. Does anyone know what their criteria is for living in them. I heard there was a large waiting list, but dont honestly know whether it is true. They interested me in that they of all charities could make a difference in the entry level people.

Stephanie, I love the varied experiences reported here also. I grew up in a family with a father who was a very strong union man. He was an electrician in heavy construction, not houses, and the big job was always over the next hill so we did move alot. I heard about unions my whole growing up years. I was never allowed to cross a picket line anywhere.

So says Wal-Mart on p. 145. "Why? For the dues money, of course. Think of what you would lose with a union: first, your dues money, which could be $20 a month 'and sometimes much more'. Second, you would lose 'your voice' because the union would insist on doing your talking for you."

Even at Wal-Mart wages, $20 a month ain't a bunch. And with a union you would have some muscle to help assure that you got your $20 worth. You would lose your "voice"? What voice do you have now, other than to say "I quit"?

Of course, BE (and Lorrie, I, others) are preaching to the choir here.

A major part of the problem is the fact that big-league organized labor has a deservedly lousy image--slightly above the Mafia, but not much. George Meany was a fat guy with an eternal cigar in his face whose idea of recreation was to play gin rummy. I can't quite remember his successor's name, but he was given to a gassy, florid style of oratory that went out with William Jennings Bryan. The new guy, Sweeney, seems good, but time will tell.

It's little wonder that unions have so little appeal to prospective members, despite the obvious need for "solidarity forever"--or at least solidarity for the next year or so.

RAMBLER: And yet, wasn't it beetle-browed John L. Lewis who was responsible for getting the children out of the coal mines?

Lorrie

The original union leaders seem to have great personal courage and determination. But then many unions became quite rich and attracted various criminal elements. Some unions to this day are good honest and hardworking, but others ( teamsters for an example) are assumed to be major dishonest. Such a shame for public perception. The teachers union has a good reputation and I think that most construction unions with the teamsters exception sound pretty straightforward. Who knows Disney has a union and that must have been a hard job. Actually they have several with all of their different types of work.

Today's mail brought a retirement message from the ACLU's Ira Glasser. Excerpts follow.

"When my wife and I were in our 20s, we were looking to move into Manhattan. ...We found out about a middle income co-op that was being built where it was possible to live...very cheaply. ....It required a $5,000 down payment for a two-bedroom apartment with a nice long terrace. ...But we couldn't come up with the $5,000 until my father lent it to me.

"Now, my father was not wealthy. He had been a construction worker. ...The reason that my father got his construction job...was related to the fact that black families were denied jobs and mortgages and therefore the opportunities to accumulate assets. ...FHA, VHA (discriminated), not to mention what private banks did. Between 1960 and 1980, real estate was the major means of asset accumulation in this country for middle-class people because of the appreciated value of home ownership.

(Somewhat different subject here): "When Jackie Robinson got his first job in baseball in 1947, there were 400 jobs to be had. The day he trotted out onto the field, white players filled 399 of the jobs. Number 400 the season before was the unjust beneficiary of Robinson's exclusion, (a fact) directly related to the fact that blacks were not allowed to compete."

(Somewhat different subject, again): Robert Bruss writes a syndicated column about real estate. Today's column discussed the rather involved topic of reverse mortgages. If you are a senior and lucky enough to own your home, you may be able to go to a financial institution, sign some papers, and get them to pay you so-many tax-free dollars per month for as long as you live. When you die (or sell), then they usually get the home. Government-backed goodies like this are not available to the non-senior, non-homeowning poor, who may well need it most.

I have been browsing back into Nickled and Dimed.. I realize that I wish she had been a bit more specific about certain topics. Since I suspect that most entry level employees tend to stick to one geographic area, why did she move around. She had no backup and I think a good many entry level do. The situations she portrayed were artificial especially at the end. She quit because she had determined certain levels of income. I realize that we did not get a clear view of actual living since she could not come up with a safe place to live. I would love to see this tried by someone else staying in the same area and being more realistic about what to expect about living arrangements.

Stephanie:

I don't quite understand why you think we might have gotten a better picture if someone other than Eherenreich had done the research. Whether she stayed in one place or not, the amount of money she allowed herself for expenditures was what was considered the average where she was. The housing problems would follow her no matter where she worked.

The "back-up" you speak of with entry level workers is usually relatives with whom these workers move in, c0-workers who share living quarters, and she was triying to show that it is impossible for a single person, alone, to subsist on what they earn today. I don't know how you can get more realistic.

Lorrie

I'd look very thoroughly into reverse mortgages before signing one. I understand that the "interest rate" is quite high. Does anyone have any information on this?

MollyY

PS. When I have more time, I'll do an online search. In the meantime ????

MollyY: Yes, by all means, tread carefully if you're considering a reverse mortgage. See www.reversemortgage.org, bearing in mind that that's the site of the reverse mortgage lenders' assn.

IF you own your home and IF you have no heirs or your heirs aren't interested in inheriting your home, AND you need extra income, THEN you might want to think about a reverse mortgage.

I haven't found a downside, but high interest rates may be one.

I suppose the main thing I learned from the book is that, if you lack relatives or friends who can lend you a few hundred bucks for something like a deposit on an apartment, as virtually all poor do, being poor is very expensive. You can't afford a decent apartment, so you live in a hovel or a vehicle or a motel. You can't afford to buy food in bulk at bargain prices and store up refrigerated stews, etc., because you don't have a fridge or freezer. So you eat fast food, the most expensive and least-nourishing food there is. Of course, if you lack trustworthy friends or an extended family, you can't afford child care.

I can't find much fault with BE's methodology.

I'll second the list that Rambler just gave and add that sometimes the best "research" is the kind that generates the most questions that are yet to be answered. It generates interest and ideas about the next step. It generates discussion. BE's project was just about perfect from the standpoint of public interest. Compare it to a well written hypothesis/study published in a respected social research journal. How many of those did we mull over this month? I promise you, though, that grant proposals to study economic difficulties of the working poor are being written by the dozens, maybe hundreds. Universities that might never have considered funding such studies will undoubtedly approve them quickly.

The possibilities are endless. The research focus has to be very tight, very specific. One study might look at loss of independent thinking after one year of working at a large corporation with restrictive behavior controls....or comparing level of independent thinking among workers at small businesses (less than 25 employees), medium sized businesses (25-100 employees) and large businesses (over 100 employees).

Another study might look at (minimum-wage class) economic difficulties among single without children, single with children, married without children, married with children.... in two different population settings, small city and large city. Or possibly in several states with diverse cost of living levels. I could only do wild guesses at hypotheses....maybe that people with children, whether single or married, do better economically in small cities, even when cost of living is considered.

Someone might also study how age, gender, years in same position, education, view of self, plans for the future, age of store, size of business, gender of management, age of management, available family support, number of friends, part-time, full-time....how any or a combination of factors could affect the life of someone making minimum wage.

As I was listing these, I was remembering how often what one expects as an outcome (common sense) can turn out very differently. For instance, we might find out that the age of female managers (for our subjects) really matters and that the age of male managers doesn't really matter (just making this up). Or, that number of friends ranks even higher than support of family members in the same town in, what, satisfaction? (what are we measuring??) or maybe economic viability. Or, that married couples without children (with 2 minimum wage jobs) actually do worse at the end of the economic month than a single person without children.

Maybe we'd find out that minimum-wage employees, whether single, married, with or without children, all do better at a store that has been in business 3 or more years.

The kind of results that interest me would be something like....if we were measuring life satisfaction along with economic difficulties and found out that people under 25 and over 60 had the highest level of satisfaction, even if they struggled financially each month, if they listed 3 or more "close friends." Close friends mitigated whatever worries they had over money...in those 2 age groups. (The general media that rarely reports research results without knowingly or unknowingly spinning it somehow, would probably produce the headline...POOR SENIORS ACT LIKE ADOLESCENTS.)

Ok, I'm having way too much fun with this pretend stuff.

betty

Ahh, but the dreaming stuff has great potential. You list many things that would be fun and instructive to know. I owned a used book store for a few years. I had many people who earned very little money, but read. I would guess that my point about the entry level workers is that most of the people had worked out their housing in different ways. Several of them had answered a roommate ad. Two of them lived in trailer parks in rental trailers. As one of the men used to say... Not new... Not fancy, but it has a bed, air and someplace to cook and eat.. There was a laundramat three doors from my store and they would come in and carefully look in my .50 sale books and buy two a week. I was always impressed with them and even would let them retrade them ( sale books were usually not tradeable). reading to me is a necessity of life and I realized for them , it also was.

Rambler and Betty have it exactly right.

There are millions of Americans out there who come from such deep poverty that they have to begin with NOTHING. NOTHING! How do you get starting up money? You don't. You have to save it. But how DO you save, when it takes every penny you make just to scrape by? When week after week you just get further behind. Note, further BEHIND , not further ahead! Your health begins to fail, your body needing patching up. You need medical attention. You cannot afford it. The cost of pain killers you purchase to cover up the symptoms of your beaten body come out of your tiny budget for food, having the result of making the body fail ever faster.

Poor is not the fault of the poor. It takes an easy-to-read book such as this one to make the public see this. Statistics are dry things, and it is SO easy to say people should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Surrrrrrre they should! Where do they get the money to buy the boots?

I do not have the book, yet. Have ordered it from the library, but am something like 34th on the list. I have been reading the posts (lurking!) and am a little dismayed at this 'pull by bootstraps' thing! I liked your comment about money for boots Mary Page. I wonder about all of these surveys and books that are being written about the 'working poor' Do you think the 'working poor' have enough money to buy and read these books? Unfortunatly, most of them do not have too much time to hang out in their libraries-they are too busy working two or three jobs and trying to raise families to do this very often and keep up with the latest books on their plight-never mind, read them. Something is wrong with this picture!

From the posts that I have read, the author did not do these jobs for a very long time. I am not sure that this makes her an expert on the problem. I am very anxious to get the book-I am trying not to go into the book with pre-conceived notions, but having done that and been there, I think I may have some. I am going to the mall this week and will probably buy the book! I am certain that you will hear from me again on this subject-I do have some strong opinions on minimum wages and the attitudes about them! I am sure this book will enlighten me-or maybe strengthen my ideas! Wilan

MOLLY Y: Yes, Molly, follow Rambler's advice and be very careful if you are considering a reverse mortgage loan. From the little I know of these loans, I understand that they appeal mostly to people with paid-for homes and very little income. I have also heard that interest rates are high here.

BETTY GREGORY: Your post was hilarious. I think it's so great that you can have fun with something that would have me tearing my hair!!

STEPHANIE: There was something in the tone of the post you wrote that sort of touched me. What a shame you couldn't have kept on with your little book store---you gave all those people who struggled so hard to get by the one touch they needed so badly. That need for the printed word. I like the way you described these entry level workers, you gave them the respect so lacking in their lives. I like your comments, even though I don't always agree.

MARY PAGE: You summed it up very vociferously. Good for you!

WILAN: I sure hope you can get the book soon. Have you tried Half.com? Very reasonable prices. Don't worry, we'll be around for a while. RAMBLER saw to that!

BOOKS

Lorrie

wilan, others: I think BE makes it clear that she doesn't claim that her brief experiences made her an expert on the problems of the working poor. On the contrary, she goes into these experiences rested and with good health, good teeth, and--above all--the knowledge that, at any time, she can go to a phone or an ATM and escape her woes entirely. All these are advantages that virtually none of her co-workers had. And still she found it unbearable, even for brief periods.

I am done with the book, and was going to give it to the local public library. But since they wouldn't "give" it to me, why should I give it to them? wilan or others can e-mail their address, or a friend's address, and I'll mail it. First come, first served.

From a C-Span BookTV presentation heard last night, I picked up the following (someone quoting another)....

If one segment of our society is impoverished, it impoverishes us all......Robert. F. Kennedy

An hour earlier (my sleepy mind must have been tuned into this subject), I awoke only long enough to hear a segment of another thought...

....the narrow soul that cannot feel shame at another's desperation...

Betty Gregory, what great quotes you have shared with us. Both of them go straight to the heart of this matter. And MaryPage, love your comment about the boots. Once when I was singleparenting, I had a sister-in-law tell me to pull myself up by my bootstraps, how I wish I had thought of your words...

MaryPage, your post 263 really says it right -- it's almost impossible to make something out of nothing.

Ginny, Good to see you back, finally, and to read your comments. Glad to see there is another WalMart supporter here. (What do you do in the field?)

Lorrie, Thanks for the clickables, even if they made me grind my teeth a bit. The one summarizing Ortega was really slanted.

This book has really raised some consciousness. Sure, it's flawed it places, especially where BE lets her own biases stand out. But I know I'm only one among many who has said, "Gosh, I never thought about that, I didn't realize it was so tough to survive, I didn't know that lack of affordable housing was a national problem, a national scandal." BE did what she set out to do -- to see if or how the working poor survive or don't survive -- to see what obstacles those coming off welfare would face in the working world.

It's been a long time since I've read a book that so many other people want to read, a book that so many say, "Can I borrow that when you finish." (I just left my copy up in Wisconsin where a friend and her husband are reading it. My friends here will have to wait.)Back in May, my daughter and her housemate introduced me to this back. My daughter, who works in community development, said, "Mom, I'm going to give this book to everyone in the family. I want everyone I know to read this book." Guess she's getting her wish.

Public television stations each have their own budget and purchase their own programs, which they then schedule individually. Therefore, it is impossible for me to assure you that your PBS channels will carry this program. Heaps of them do, though, so look for P.O.V. (Point of View)

This Tuesday on the Washington D.C. PBS station, WETA, channel 26 (channel 6 in Annapolis and Baltimore) at eleven p.m. the show will be one titled: "TAKE IT FROM ME" , the story of 4 women trapped in the poverty cycle.

It is a ONE HOUR program.

This show is a documentary. This segment was filmed and edited over an 18 month period by Emily Abt. It has a great deal in common with the book we have just read here.

If you are concerned about missing this program, and cannot find it in your local listings, call your PBS station and ask if they will be scheduling it.

wilan, others: This appears at the top of BE's p. 10. (Since SN or whoever refuses to handle italics without ramming them up against whatever precedes them, I'll put them on a separate line):

"Just bear in mind, when I stumble, that this is in fact the
best-
case scenario: a person with every advantage that ethnicity and education, health and motivation can confer attempting, in a time of exuberant prosperity, to survive in the economy's lower depths."

Today's Chicago Tribune Magazine featured a story about a remote Mexican village, most of whose populace has moved to Chicago. They all started as dishwashers, and now they own 30-40 restaurants! The main reason (it seems to me): They supported each other in times of need, looked after each other's kids, lent money (no contracts involved!) to help others open a restaurant. Everybody understood that they would help the others, pay back the money. It's a beautiful story. Some have mansions in their Mexican village that they rarely visit because they're too busy enjoying prosperity in America.

Rambler, do you remember Michenor's Hawaii -- the old Chinese grandmother -- when the oldest grandchild was college age, she called the family together and the whole family sent that boy to college, and then all the others as they reached college age -- the whole family working together, and overtime, they became a family of successful leaders.

Thirty some years ago we lived in Puerto Rico. This was during the beginning of the Castro upheavel, and many Cubans came there -- with nothing, just what they could carry. You found the same thing then that happened with the Mexican families in Chicago. They lived together, they helped one another, and they worked hard. Today there are many successful former Cubans living in Puerto Rico.

I was talking with a friend in California today and she told of several news stations in the Bay area doing journalist-type, investigative pieces on some mothers forced off welfare. School courses are no longer paid for, unless you are working 36 hours a week, and this benefit is available only after two years of working. She said that the more stable folks and those with other sources of support (family for daycare) are doing moderately well, but that a shocking percentage of single women interviewed said that they felt forced for the first time into prostitution..."either that or my kids don't eat." My friend was telling me to be wary of reports that people are "successfully off welfare."

PBS's P.O.V. "Take It From Me" is on Channel 11 at 10 p.m. Tuesday in Chicago.

Years ago I had a friend who had just finished college when her parents were killed in an accident. Her kid sister was still in high school, and no money was left them. This friend married a classmate, and they took the sister in, but she left them, school, and that state to marry much too early. The husband left her with 2 babies. She raised them and got them through college, then putting herself through. Getting a good job finally, she confessed to my friend that she had done it all through prostitution.

It is more common than we have ever allowed ourselves to contemplate.

I do second the above posting. I had a customer who always had money. She was truly quite lovely. Came from Jamaica, had been a model briefly, but now worked in a strip club. She talked to me when she came in for books (yes, she loved to read). She said between stripping and hooking, she had supported her family in Jamaica for years. She had a college education incidently and was certified as a teacher, but said she made much more money as a hooker. Who knew??

My daughter-in-law works for Human Resources/Welfare in New Orleans. Most recently her job has been to find work and or school opportunities for clients and to monitor them. She was very excited in May that one of her longtime clients has successfully completed a chef's/cooking course and had been placed with a well-paying job. This woman, mother of 7, will be cooking on an oil rig 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off. Her youngest is about 10 and older siblings are taking care of him/her during Mom's work time. The Federal law only gives welfare recipients a certain amount of time to receive benefits and get a job and get off. Some of Dil's clients are not so lucky. They are poorly educated, too many children, in despair, etc. Turning to prostitution is probably their only option. Sue

And sometimes marriage itself is a euphemism for prostitution. When a wealthy old goat weds a lovely 30-something, it just possibly could be love on both sides. But I suspect that, more often, the motive for him is lechery (and a status-boosting trophy wife) and the motive for her is greed. How long can this fogie live, anyway? By the time she's 50, she'll be set for life.

It is true. It is all true.

Just finished talking with a friend who is a "senior" greeter at WalMart. Full time is 28 hours a week. She gets health benefits paid for -- that kicked in after 90 days, $250 annual deductible, and it covers 80% of her prescription costs. As for stock purchases, WalMart contributes .15 for every dollar the employee spends. One week vacation after a year's employment.

Hey, Pedln, Steph, Lorrie and All, it's nice to BE back.

Well what does one have but one's own experience, after all? Note she avoided areas where she might stand out strangely, I was never sure why that might be an issue?

If she had had to move to those areas, in real life not for an experiment, then she would have had to have taken her lumps, and as several of you have said, she could always bail out and she did have a car.

I remember taking my old Mustang to an auto shop and the lessons I learned there about payment and trust, and how owning an old auto translated to the owners as "risky customer," the insulting demand for payment up front, what a humiliating experience some of our little treks thru life are.

What does wealth really do for one but insulate against the shocks. Do you think if I had driven in a Porche Boxter that I would have had the same reaction?

Pedln, we live on a farm, we grow grapes and sell them, so I'm a field hand in a vineyard, essentially.

We used to have a 20 year old farm truck that the kids banged up learning to drive and hauling stuff and when I would take THAT truck to the gas station (this was when you had that unknown species: the Gas Station Attendant) the reception I got there, the length of time it took to come wait on me, was entirely different than when I swanned up in a late model luxury car, you'd have to be insensate to notice it.

The area I live in was once the Textile Mill king. There were no unions and the Mill (remember Tennessee Ernie Ford's "I owe my soul to the company store?" ruled lives, actually ran company stores, and provided Mill Village housing. Generations worked in the mill because it was better than the hardscrabble farm life? Wal Mart would have drained the mills in a heartbeat, I think.

How can "full time" be 28 hours a week, Pedln? How interesting. Does it have anything to do with Social Security? I have heard of that being done when the employer wanted to avoid health benefits or any kind of benefit, but it appears that full benefits are being offered?

ginny

Our author had a lot to hide which would have made her an obvious misfit in all of her jobs.

She owns a Ph.D. An excellent command of the mother tongue. She dared not let slip in conversation what she was reading, the grasp she would have of daily world news items, her understanding of economics, clothing items which were more expensive and better made than she should have been able to afford. She looked healthy and well-nourished. Good hair and skin care showed.

On the whole, there is a glow to America's comfortable and a needy, desperate, unkempt look to America's poor. Barbara Ehrenreich could not have lasted much longer than she did in any of the situations portrayed. Her cut and polish would have gleamed and caught too many eyes.

Ginny, I wondered about that 28 hours a week too. Sometimes I don't hear numbers well, but I repeated it back to her, so I think it's right.

I thought about "company stores" a lot while reading the WalMart section. Which is worse -- poor with no cash flow, or poor and under somebody's thumb?

HEY, GINNY!

Your description of the town near you makes me think of John Steinbeck, somehow.

STEPHANIE, SUE:

Your true-life stories of how some women found it necessary to turn to prostitution is not only horrifying, but so sad, as well. What is wrong with a country, (supposedly one of the wealthiest in the world) where this is allowed to happen?

PEDLN: What your friend (the greeter at WalMart) told you doesn't sound too bad. It doesn't fit too well with what Ehrenreich was saying about this giant corporation, which makes me wonder if store policy and benefits change from store to store, or if the author was unaware of some of the better attractions for employees. Now I'm puzzled.

MARY PAGE: You make BE sound like the darling of the literai, but I'm sure her "glow" wasn't that obvious, judging from the personal appearances I saw of this author. It's true, though, people of means are much better-groomed (permed, proper makeup, regular hair-cuts, access to laundry facilities) All the things that most of us take for granted.

Lorrie

Today my cleaning lady is scheduled to come at 11:00. I have several questions I want to ask her, but you know what? I've never gotten that personal with her, never asked her about her family, where she lived, etc. She's always in such a hurry, for one thing, and for another, I admit I don't want to sound "prying" or condescending. She is a very private person, I think. But today I am genuinely curious. I'll let you know later what she says.

Lorrie

Here the cleaning people get paid $7.50 an hour, although the "clients" are charged $15. The difference is supposed to cover unemployment insurance, workmen's comp, health insurance. However, each worker has a $10 a week deduction as co-payment on insurance. The workers are not allowed to eat, drink, smoke, or engage in idle conversation. I don't know about water, I would refuse to abide by such a stupid rule as BE found in Maine. All in all, it's a pretty bleak existence. No wonder there is such a huge turnover, and I understand theft is fairly common. One worker says "They need to take somethin in order to buy diapers for the next week."

Tells you something, doesn't it?

Lorrie

Now that we are idling down to the finish of this book, I would like to get your thoughts on it as a whole. Do you feel, like Mary Pge, that Ehrenreich performed a service by writing this book? Could she have gone about this in a different way?

Do you feel the book had problems? What were they? And finally, were any of the events she wrote about relevant to your own life?

Lorrie

Summing up. I loved the book. Even though I did not necessarily agree with all she wrote, I salute the courage and stamina she displayed to do the research to write the book. She showed me another side of the world and how they live and worry. I have always felt that safe and secure housing is a basic right and this just reinforced it for me. I also feel that health plans should be a basic right. They are in most of Europe and they should be here. Noone should have to do without in basic health care. The bells and whistles,, well that is up to the individual, but the right to be seen by a doctor, diagnosed and receive medication should be bottom line.. I know.. it wont be as long as all elected politicians get to write their health plans into their pay.. If they had to pay for it themselves.. boy would life change.

She got folks talking, thinking. Now let's see what gets done.

Did anyone see The O'Reilly Report on Fox News last evening? I caught just the tailend of a report by a woman economist with a Ph.D. reporting on the plight of the working poor and how they just cannot afford housing, health care,etc. O'Reilly was going on and on about how he just did not believe it. The want ads are full of jobs, I made it and anyone can if they really want to he kept arrogantly repeating. It points out to me the value of what BE did with this book. It brings it to life, makes it real. It is not a book full of statistics with charts and graphs. She put a human face, hers and her co-workers, on the life struggle of the working poor. I liked the book and appreciate what she did and how she did it.

I finally got 'Nickel and Dimed'today and have not been able to put it down. I wore those shoes for a good fifteen years of my life and I now have a part time job at Walmart in the fitting room and soft lines!

I think the author is telling a very fair story without any of the 'reformer' rantings that this type of book often engenders. I am only halfway through the book and love it! I feel love, fairness and humor!

I feared going into this book with pre-conceived ideas-it didn't happen! I raised four children on a waitresses 'tips'-I was lucky-I had low cost, decent housing in federally funded housing-the author is absolutely right, zeroing in on housing being the problem.

These jobs are not career choices-most people that have to do minimum wage jobs do not have the luxury of choice. I am so dismayed at the 'pull themselves up by the bootstraps' syndrome! I know that many do just this with luck and very hard work-some do not have the ability or opportunity. Perhaps, some find the rut easiest, but I do not think this is the norm!

I have to say that I do not run into the type of assistant managers that she seems to have encountered-but with other income, perhaps my confidence is different?! I truly do this to relieve boredom now-it was not always this way!

I liked the way she approached these jobs-doing the very best she could-that's dignity! Not all minimum wage people feel this way, but most do!

I fear this state of affairs will not change-most of those that have really do not care that much! There is a large 'I have mine, the heck with you' feeling out there! Wilan

You are SO right.

MaryPage, I saw the special you told us about...on PBS very late last night, starting at 11 PM, I think. It was excellent, so well done. I was pretty upset by the end of it, feeling the powerlessness with some of them, worried if some are still alive (can't be found), etc. Thank you SO much for letting us know when and where to watch...what a powerful piece.

Then, TODAY (I couldn't believe it), I saw ANOTHER documentary on the same subject, filmed in Chicago over a 5 year period, following the lives of a multigeneration family. Narrated by Nickcole Collins, (spelling correct), grandaughter of a welfare mother and grandmother. Each year was a chapter in the program, ending with year 2000. Produced on HBO, but I saw it on Cinemax. The film begins with the death of a son, a straight-A student, the first of his family who was destined to graduate from high school and go on to college. The story is the dramatic impact of his death on the lives of a family that has been on welfare for many decades. The name of the film is Legacy.

I'm a severe critic of movies and this one is one of the finest I've seen in years.

After watching both specials within 24 hours, I'm about ready to move to the neediest place and open a shelter. ALL of these people come through a shelter at one time or another.

Here's another movie, an old, old black and white classic whose story-line is very close to BE's adventure. The name of the movie is Sullivan's Travels. It has the most unique format!! It's quite long with the first half as light comedy, while the last half is serious drama. A millionaire vows to go live a few days (weeks?) with the homeless to see what it's like. As you watch, it's so obvious where the movie is going...and then be prepared for a shock. I haven't seen it in a while, but I think it won some awards.

Ok, that's it for my movie reviews.

betty

These are excellent responses! I can tell by your comments that you have all given a great deal of thought to this subject, and this pleases me no end, because that was why this book was written, wasn't it?

STEPHANIE:
A well thought out response, reasoned and matter-of-fact. I am in complete agreement with you on health care. I've been an advocate of National Health Care for years. We're the only industialized nation that doesn't have complete medical coverage for all its citizens, and I think that is a disgrace. That and the lack of shelter.

pedln: Yes, a very good question! We shall see.

PAIGE: Doesn't it infuriate you when people keep referring to those "want ads?" I get so tired of hearing that old myth, even when Ronald Reagan was spouting it. That interview must have been irritating as can be, as OReilley can be so often.

WILAN: You mentioned something that I noticed, too. I liked the way Ehrenreich took a sense of pride in each job she did. It reminded me of my father who said, "Even if it's cleaning toilets, do it right! A job done well is a job to be proud of!"

BETTY: Do you know where we can get that movie, "Sullivan's Travels?" Sounds like something I'd like to see!

Lorrie

Lorrie, I am no O'Rielly fan. I was just clicking by and the subject matter grabbed my attention. He had me talking to my TV set, infuriating as can be! MaryPage, I too watched the POV special that you guided us to watch. Very powerful, indeed. It kept me awake thinking of the hopelessness of people in this situation. I especially thought of the woman who could not get her children back because she could not get an apartment. Seeing her little boy cry hysterically when he had to leave her broke my heart. How in the world can these people ever get together first and last month's rent plus deposit? Let alone pay the rent consistantly? So sad.

I suppose this will get me in hot water. So be it.

At least one of the couples on Take It from Me were making babies like they had a six-figure income. With the contraceptives that are available today, that makes no sense to me.

Children are enormous consumers of two things the poor have precious little of--time and money. If you're really poor and you decide to have kids, you're virtually condemning yourselves (and very likely the kids) to continued poverty.

Yes, I realize that women are sometimes abandoned by their husband/boyfriend, or he becomes unable to work, he goes to prison, he dies. But many of these poor-but-with-children situations are avoidable. And they're not fair to the kids either, in my view.

I've been lurking here throughout this discussion and think many good points have been made about the "working poor".

However: Yesterday my computer was infected by a virus (w32.magistr.24876@mm according to the friend's computer) which copied itself and sent it to my address book, plus to web sites I visited before I realized I had a virus. I used my Norton anti-virus program to fix it, but you may have received a strange e-mail from my mailbox with an attachment. I hope you deleted it immediately. However, it would be best if you ran your anti-virus program and other fix-it programs you might have. I'm very sorry if somehow my computer infected yours. SpringCreekFarm

RAMBLER:
Now that is a very provocative thought. I have heard that argument before, especially from couples who plan their families according to when they feel they can afford it, like the loss of time the mother-to-be would lose from her job, the loss of a double income, in some cases, and even the thought of feeding one extra mouth. Some people think that having such large families without planning for them or preparing for the expense is an act of irresponsibility. How do the rest of you feel about this?

Lorrie

SPRING CREEK FARM:

I hope no one was affected by the "virus" and that you got yours cleared away without losing too much.
It was nice of you to alert people here. Thank you.

Lorrie

Rambler, I feel both, irritation that common sense wasn't used (or at least a condom), and deep compassion, that the depth of wisdom we think of as "common sense" is not as easily acquired as we might think. In a land of deprivation, standing up to a beloved boyfriend who refuses to wear a condom might feel impossible. Also, there is something difficult about foresight, about considering consequences, when one is struggling to manage this one day. The other thing that governs so much behavior is....available role models. If what you are doing is similar to what everyone else is doing....it takes a giant-size effort to pull away from the norm.

This battle has been going on for over 80 years now, and is still not resolved.

The couple seemed to be Latino; probably Catholic and afraid of hell fire forever. Most educated Catholics practice birth control, but the less advantaged do not. Also, Latino males tend to be the most macho and, as Betty points out, utterly REFUSE to use condoms. As for her, birth control pills cost too much unless she lives in a county that will give them to her for free, or close to a clinic which will do the same for her.

The female in these cases is caught in a whirlpool. She agrees to have sex with the male who seems presentable to her and avows he "LOOOOVES" her. She has a baby she cannot afford. She depends upon him to support them. He will walk out without sex. He will not use a condom. She cannot avail herself of protection or he will not allow her to. She has another baby, then another. He walks out and starts the whole thing up again with another female. She loses her children over inability to support them. Who wins here? No one. Who loses? The children.

Me, I'm for free birth control available on almost every street corner. I'm for birth control lectures being forced upon women giving birth as charity cases. Don't just give them the literature; they won't read it. I'm for castration of males who cause a litter of babies to be born and then go off, leaving them without any means of support, and refuse to avail themselves of the free birth control. They should not be able to do this over and over and over again. Prudent taxpayers wind up paying through the nose for the support of these babies.

I DO NOT BEGRUDGE the babies, but I sure do want to stop their daddies. Hand me a knife, Betty!

Hooray.. I am with you. The babies are the ones who suffer and the new boyfriends in many cases where I live are quite deadly about the old boyfriends babies. Truly a scary situation. I must confess that when we have charity drives here and the subject is a Momma who has children and each one has a different last name, I am not inclined to give. I simply cannot and will not condone the casual plural sex that seems to be a given in many cases. The children are neglected as each new one comes along and they are the ones who suffer. But,yes Castrate a few of the macho males and maybe life would be easier. Latino... well that just shows bad taste on her part. Any woman with any self esteem( I know,,, this is what they are lacking) should say that if you love me, you will protect me from having babies until we are old enough or mature enough to marry.. I know.. Get off your soapbox.

MaryPage, you make some valid points. As a retired school teacher I often taught 12 and 13 y.o. pregnant students. They needed contraceptive advice and warnings about men and boys who were abusing them. However, the JUSTSAYNO mentality prevails in many places where the poor are especially in need of contraceptives and education on the topic. I'm in favor of strong sex education before Junior High School and having school nurses available with the authority to give out contraceptives. Many young girls, particularly in the rural South, are maturing at 10 and earlier. The parent (usually a grandmother) either is unable or unwilling to tell the girl the facts of life. Grandma may take the children to church, but church is not educating them about sex either. It's a terrible situation and results in generations of poor people who are unable to support themselves. Sue

I am almost through with the book-could not put it down. I did not realize that low cost, federally funded housing was almost at a standstill. Low cost housing is definitely your answer to most of this problem. Honest, fair increases in the minimum wage is the other. Minimum wage jobs-just the name alone is sort of contemptible. Minimum wage-hmmh! Has sort of a 'look down your nose' flair to it! We all strew our garbage as we go through life (laundry, toilets, illness, incontinence, etc) and none of us want to dignify the people that do most of the cleaning up. BE's reasoning about womens' messiness and brattiness when shopping had the ring of truth and a touch of hysteria! Made me a little ashamed of women!

I think that low wage people do not unionize because they are living hand to mouth existances while working-can you imagine the horrors if not working? I come from a very active union family-I, myself was a union negotiator for about ten years. Management spends huge sums on trying to brain wash their employees-but I think that fear is what is keeping low wage employees from organizing. Management knows this-this is why they fight so hard and spend so much money to keep the status quo!

BE does not mention the public's attitude and seeming contempt for low wage earners. It is true that most of them are invisible to the average 'user' of the employees services UNLESS they have a complaint', need help or a whipping boy! I really believe that unless the public attitude (bigoted, disdain-whatever) changes, not much will be done to alleviate the system. I do believe that BE's book is a GIANT step toward that goal!

Wilan

Hey, I am ALL IN FAVOR of abstinence! I can truly say I was a virgin bride (at 19). But as much as I believe, for a myriad of realistic reasons, that promiscuity is a dreadful choice, I say to all the religious rightous ones that they need to GET REAL.

We can no more stop sex in the young than we can turn back the tides. To simply preach abstinence is to ---- into the wind, only in this instance it comes back in our faces in the form of too many unhappy little babies condemned to noxious lives.

We give both babies and mothers better lives when we give them the gift of birth control. Safe, sanitary, reliable and FREE birth control!

I'm confused-how did we get onto birth control-I thought we were talking about minimum wages!

As long as we are on this subject-I agree-free birth control! We can't stop sex in the young or poor-nor should we. I had a friend who used to say that if God created anything better, He/She kept it to Him/Herself! But help bring the babies into a safer world! FREE BIRTH CONTROL.

I was NEVER a Nancy Reagan fan and I think the most ridiculous thing she EVER said was 'JUST SAY NO'!

Peace Wilan

Some of us have finished the book and are just "winging it"--chewing the fat, ruminating. "Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate"--one of Shakespeare's sonnets.

No matter how hard the working poor may try to escape their lot, those who persist in making babies seem doomed. But you're right, this does not appear to be a subject that Barbara Ehrenreich addressed. We have, admittedly, strayed from the book.

MaryPage: But men do LOOOVE. She didn't believe me, and married the other guy; it didn't last. It's been 43 years. Maybe I'll forget oneday.

Sue,you're right about the Just Say No mentality. Our school nurses can't even give out aspirin without written permission from the parent, let alone contraceptives. And our school board has adopted an abstinence only sex education policy.

Re: Minimum wage. I'm not an economist, so I don't know what's right. Many argue that raising the minimum wage does not help the minimum wage earner. As the minimum wage goes up, so does everything else. No doubt there are statistics that both prove and disprove this.

Housing: Had a rheumatologist appt. today and the doc ended up talking about his kids and his son-in-law. SIL is a finance person for a building concern. His job is to get tax credits so his firm can put up low income housing. Maybe if enough carrots are dangled we can see some improvement in the housing situation.

RAMBLER: It's true, we have strayed a little off from the subjects that Ehrenreich wrote about, but there is a lot of truth in what you say about over-large families contributing to the poverty. It looks like we are all agreed that the biggest obstacle to overcome for the working poor to better themselves is the lack of affordable housing.

pedln:
What you wrote about that SIL working to help with a tax carrot with builders and corporations is a carrot that actually works, when it is attractive enough. I can vouch for that myself.

Some twenty or more years ago, the government made it possible for corporations to secure extremely low-interest loans, plus other in-centives, provided the loans were used to build affordable apartment buildings. This was a win-win situation, the landlords built decent places to live, and the tenants, after being properly screened, found attractive apartmens to live in at a subsidized rent, and the relationship was still a private one, unlike outright public housing. I live in such a building. It is limited to seniors, is in a very nice neighborhood, and because it is owned and operated by a corporation that has since built luxury condos all around the area, enables the tenants to share in many of the "freebies" that the other wealthier residents of other building have, like a daily mini-bus to take us shopping, planned activities, a beauty parlor and huge community room, etc. The downside for the owners, of course, is that they work hand in hand with HUD, and I understand the paperwork and regulations are unending. However, it has been a godsend to many people, myself included, and ever since I can remember there has been a long waiting list for vacancies.

During the first Bush's administration, the Republicans pushed through a bill that passed, enabling private owners of HUD operated property to pay off their loans way in advance, if they so desired. Well, of course with the huge skyrocketing rents here, most of these owners opted for that, which enabled them to immediately go to "market rent" on all their apartments. At first most of the tenants were given 60 days notice to either move or sign a new lease, but there was so much protest about that they did extend it a little. Under the subsidy, the teanant paid only 30% of his income for rent--Hud picked up the difference, and of course that ended. You can imagine the alarm and the feelings of insecurity this caused to many older people---some elderly ladies had lived in building like this for ten or twelve years, and now had to find another place, if they could, at the age of 85,86, and even older. Two of my neighbors recently visited a friend in one of those buildings and came back to tell us the friend spends most of her days in her apartment staring out the window and weeping. She is 89 years old.

We were lucky here, I suppose. The owners of these buildings have assured us that yes, they will be going out of the subsidies, but will continue it for the existing tenants on a year to year basis, as long as HUD continues withe the funding.

You can imagine what fear lies in the minds of these old people. We are not exactly "working poor," but very few of us can afford to pay what they are asking for rent now, and the only alternative is to go live with relatives, as so many of BE's workers do, or else to go on Welfare and apply to go in a nursing home.

So you can see we know this housing situation is very real. To make it more attractive to delvelopers to build places like this can work, and we can only hope that our lawmakers can do something about that. Sorry to be so long-winded, but as you may have guessed, we have spent a lot of time and words on this subject.

Lorrie

Lorrie, you are not long-winded at all, and we all owe you a vote of thanks for taking on the leadership of this discussion. One of the things that has made this discussion interesting are the personal experiences of the participants that relate to matters in the book.

Minimum wage.. Well when I think of the non service you seem to get in so many areas nowadays, I am not sure that the minimum wage is even deserved. When my granddaughter is here, we go sometimes to her favorite McDonalds.. I hate the place.. The service is awful, Its never anybodys job.. That is to wait on you, to clean, etc. They are not using the older people here that I used to see in Winter Park, Florida. Those McDonalds were great. Courteous service, clean as a pin and a joy to all. The ones here are awful. Only kids in them and they simply do not want to wait on customers. They want to talk to friends. Of course this is a management problem but Oh, I get so annoyed there. WalMart seems to keep that sort of thing to a minimum as does Home Depot.. The checkers are almost always fast and efficient. Thank heaven.

Lorrie, you are one of our modern day heroes, you have downplayed your own part in the story of the building you live in, and I appreciate being brought up to speed on the situation; so it's to continue as long as HUD does on a year to year basis? I hope that the residents of your building may find some temporary comfort in that?

---

I was interested in what Wilan said earlier, she said, BE does not mention the public's attitude and seeming contempt for low wage earners.

That's a very interesting point. Do you agree with it, does the public at large have an "attitude" about the ....well how would you know unless you enountered the low wage earner in his job, if he was one?

Could you, for instance, tell a low wage earner if you were behind him in line at the supermarket? (I'm wondering about how we perceive people at all levels, not just in low income jobs when we encounter them)??

I guess I'm wondering out loud if BE had a built in factor that kept the stings and arrows of outrageous fortune in the case of perceived attitudes away from bothering her too much, or whether (as it seemed to indicate) she, too, fell prey to it?

Or did she? She picked up and left often enough?

And if that is so, if it did bother her, it makes me wonder what, in fact, a person could do to insulate himself from these attitudes?

Not sure any of that makes any sense?

ginny

Giny-I meant when the public encountered the low wage earner on his/her job.

Let me give you an example of what happened to me one night. When Wslmart closes at ten P>M> they announce the closing and we (employees) are supposed to esciort any left over customers to the front of the store. One night when I told a customer the store had closed and that I was sorry but I could not allow her to shop anymore, she turned on me as though I was attempting to steal her wallet or hit her on the head and informed me that she wished me lots of luck in my four dollar an hour job!-all of this said with great contempt and anger. I am not sure what my wage had to do with my reuest, but she thought it did! And, I WAS very polite, not a crank! Now, when a customer does not heed the closing call, they can shop until they are blue in the face or a manager comes and gets them as far as I am concerned! I was lucky that she did not pull out a gun and shoot me! Yes, there is disdain for the minimum wage worker on the job and no, I can't tell if there is a minimum wage worker in the grocery line in front of me!

The kids are awful-they do not have much of a work ethic-work is just another four letter word to many of them (75%!) When most of them find out that Walmart really expects them to work for their money, many of them leave. And, yes, BE left her jobs (all of them?) very independently-she had that luxury. People raising families, paying rent and buying food and clothes do not!

As far as perceiving people at all levels-how about BE's reasoning why women make such a mess when they shop at a self service store. The comment was made about the lack of help and perhaps 'they' so not deserve the pittance 'they' get! Perhaps they are all cleaning up the messes that the customers make. There is nothing like a low level job for perception! This little part time job at Walmart is an eye opener for me, too. I worked as an interviewer and customer service representative for a bank for twenty five years. There was definitly a difference in perception!

I agree, low cost, decent housing, education and slow down on the babies. I really think that just raising the wage and not fixing these other things is self defeating and sort of endles!

I certainly agree about McDonald's. It is sort of a shame that this kind of employee service is tolerated. McDonald's had a fine reputation once for cleanliness and service. Of course it is a management problem, but most of the managers are those kids without much work ethic, either. BE was right about the cheap labor market-there are far more jobs out there than can be filled. As a result there is a lot of bad workmanship tolerated and that is sad, too! Peace Wilan

Wilan: Your comments about the woman who verbally scorned you at closing time struck a chord with me. It is not limited to Wal Mart employees. I taught school and worked as a university staff librarian and some parents and students [from high school through ph.d level] can be as rude and obnoxious as your late shopper was. I'm not at all sure civility by others towards anyone who is working, regardless of the job or the pay, has anything to do with the pay associated with the job. I'm convinced it has to do with the lack of civility in much of our current society. The incidences of "rage" in a variety of workplaces has been so much in the news...whether it be private business, post office, schools.

The "mess" left by others can also be seen in today's teens. I saw kids sweep paper scraps, sunflower seed hulls onto the floor..or left on library tables or desks for others to clean up. When approached and told to clean it up, the reply from the "slobs" was..."that's what your're paid to do." My response was "WRONG! If you need someone to clean up after you, bring your mother to school. The taxpayers aren't paying anyone to be your servant."

This kind of behavior in society is not, as I said earlier, limited to any particular pay level or age. I don't know if this rude behavior is attributable to immaturity, to self-centeredness, to lack of training in civil behavior, to inflated egos or to other things.

That rage really frightens me. I perceive it all around me in daily life now. It does not seem to exist much in my own generation, but the younger they get, the more rage. You read about it in the daily paper and hear about it in the tv and radio news. You see it in tv shows.

When NIH experimented with rat societies many, many years ago, they found that overpopulation led first to rage, then to anti-social behavior (killing and murder and cannabalism), then to total disassociation.

I believe this is what we are seeing.

Heaven help us!

WILAN:
What happened to you at Walmart that time seems to be more common in different places than we realized. Let's hope it's not the norm, only a rarity.

JANE:
Your comments were very perceptive. I am inclined to agree that the rudeness, lack of common courtesy, etc. is not related to the amount of money these people make. I also wonder if any of us are guilty of viewing these "working poor" with a certain amount of contempt, as has been stated? What a pity it is if we judge all those people by what we see, rather than the circumstances that brought them to where they are.

As for the lenth of time BE spent at each workplace, I think she had a time schedule she had set for herself, and for what she was reporting on, I feel that the time she spent at each place was adequate.

Lorrie

I agree that this rude kind of conduct exists almost everywhere regardless of wages-it just seems to occur more often with a minimum wage earner. Whether this is a fault of attitude on the part of the low wage earner or contempt and rudeness from those they deal with may be 'up for grabs' as they say! I believe that it is a 'better than you are' attitude from the public. Yes, this rudeness and rage is frightening and I am sick of the explanation that stress is the cause. Stress is part of life-without some stress, life would be drab, indeed. Read 'The Greatest Generation' if you want to know about stress and what to do about it! Peace Wilan

So, what does it say about us...this discussion, this fear everywhere...that all forms of violent crime are down, drastically down....name anything and it's drastically reduced from 20 years ago, 30 years ago. I really don't have a point here...it's just that I, like you, am going along feeling more anxious about school shootings, road rage, rude behavior, then, once again (happened several times), I'll see a PBS or NOVA report that says there is something going on with US, that we can't absorb that crime and that kind of impulse rage is dropping and has been dropping for years. In the lawless 20s, 30s, there were more school shootings than there are today, more impulse killings at work (depression era), more Mcdonalds-restaurant-type mass killings of innocent people.

The quick answer is that there is no pause between something happening and our hearing about it...we have instant news now. 24 hours a day. And we have on-the-scene news....Jack Ruby type witnessing. I have a feeling, though, that this isn't all that's going on. Let's don't dismiss MaryPage's thought about density, about population crowding. My years away on the coast of Oregon brought such a different rhythm of life...the owner of one of two grocery stores often delivered my groceries. The "postmaster," a woman, smiled once when I went to the window to pick up packages and ventured a guess that one was from my mother. It was. This tiny village was filled with Master degreed fry cooks and Ph.D. motel maintenance people...all on purpose. It's a common story, I know, but in this one place, it worked beautifully. The city council had a standing no-vote to any chain business. Every business in town was locally owned. I've wandered off the subject. Good place to quit.

There is still the question...what is this fear about? Or, is that completely separate from the rudeness question.

betty

betty: I would appreciate the source, if you have it, of the statistics that say :In the lawless 20s, 30s, there were more school shootings than there are today, more impulse killings at work (depression era), more Mcdonalds-restaurant-type mass killings of innocent people. It amazes me there were more school shootings in the 20s and 30s than there are today. My parents were adults in those years and there was never any discussion which ever said anything of the sort. There were a lot of fistfights and there was some violent acts at the coal mines that were labor related, and later there were the prohibition/Chicago gangster acts. I'm going to have to go back and check the history of that period because I remember nothing of restaurant-school violence being more common place then than now.

I also can't point to overpopulation for the rudeness where I live. I'm in RURAL Iowa...and we're not living on top of each other, believe me. In addition, there are many cultures which live in much closer proximity to each other and violence is not part of their daily lives until quite recently--Japan comes instantly to mind.

š jane›

WOW, I am enjoying every post in here. Thank You, Thank you, Thank you.

I think from the time of the pyramids, and probably well before, elders have written that the young no longer treat their elders with respect and behave in a rowdy fashion.

But it does, somehow, seem that we're facing a new-age new-rage here. But none of us is old enough to have the necessary perspective, is/are we?

I am going to sound like Miss Manners here but I see a lack of manners all over the place in our world today. It is not only young people. It is as if having manners has gone out of vogue. Sometimes one is seen as a fool for being kind. As far as fear is concerned, when I am afraid is when every few years we get the sheriff's department helicopter circling our house over and over with search lights on. A few months ago, there was a loud speaker announcement to go with it that said to stay in our house and lock the doors. We have huge overgrown gardens on 3/4 of an acre with lots of places to hide. No one was caught, eventually the helicopter just flew away. I thought, now what?

I suppose that always being as aware as possible is of value. Locking car doors, looking around and just being a bit street smart is a good idea. What else can one do? We cannot stay locked up in our houses. Road rage is a scarey thing and I never use my horn. There was a man killed here recently for cutting in front of someone on the freeway. I live in the suburbs, nice area of the capital of CA. I know it sounds like I live in a bad neighborhool of an inner city, I don't!

Mal usually writes much the same, Rambler, that each succeeding generation believes the "young" have lost their manners and that their generation is doomed.

From your post, (Rambler), the words "no longer treat their elders with respect," makes me wonder if the issue of treatment of elders isn't part of what we're discussing. Not just rudeness of workers, but to whom that rudeness is directed. In other folders, we've touched on the issues of seniors feeling invisible or in other ways not feeling respected.

Jane, I appreciate the request for documentation and it's certainly your choice not to believe unreferenced figures. I didn't take notes of authorship as credits rolled on the PBS or NOVA program...can't even say when it was. I also frowned when I first heard that there were more impulse mass shootings in the 20s, 30s, but within the last 2-3 months, I watched a (another) detailed program on the impasse of declining crime rates and (puzzling) increasing fear in the general public. One long theme was the long shadow of gangs, of the fear lingering well past the era of gangs. Another segment mentioned the shooting of Florida vacationers from Europe and the public's response....as if this incident was unusual for the U.S. This programed implied it was not.

When stats are given (a reminder given on the first program I saw) one has to remember that ANY incident (whether now or 80 years ago) has such a high probability of NOT happening. To say that there were more restaurant or school shootings in the 20s and 30s than there are now still fits with your childhood memories of nothing like that happening close to where you lived. I'm guessing, using what I heard in both programs and what I know of statistics probabilities, that the chance of impulse or rage shootings is still (and was ) rare. Of course, the discussion here and the prevelent feeling is that it is not rare, and therein lies the fear and the questions. I suppose the question could be....given that shootings of those sorts are still rare (or, more rare), why is it that our feelings have changed?

Thanks, Betty. If you see anywhere where this program is to be again on TV, I hope you'll post it somewhere. I'm so curious to know where they found those statistics. One of my favorite psychology professors always gave his first lecture on "How to Lie with Statistics," so I'm always very curious to see the statistics and see how they're being interpreted.

š jane›

Jane, I would probably see eye to eye with that professor and I'm ever so reluctant to accept stats off the internet, for instance, or from television series less dedicated than PBS, NOVA, etc. What rang true from those 2 programs was the rarity of mass shootings. The everyday liquor store stickup...that's another matter.

I'll have to give a little plug for young people who live in our community. Most of them have impeccable manners. We have some bad apples and schools have had fights (many between girls!). There have even been a few murders in the 20+ years I've lived here, but for the most part young people, white and black, are very polite to their elders. They yes Ma'am, no ma'am, teachers and all adults. However, adults in this small rural Southern area are very polite with thank yous, yes sirs, etc. I've always said yes sir, yes ma'am to older people and also to younger ones who are my employers. I do think adults must be good examples of courtesy and civilized behavior to young people. That is not always the case, even here. The rude children have rude parents. Sue

It seems so many of us bemoan the fact that good manners and civility (Sue) seem to have fallen by the wayside, except for small pockets of tranquility in some areas, like what Jane and Sue write about. Rambler says we older people miss a certain amount of respect that we assumed would come with age, and I think I would agree with him.

Years ago, for example, in my limited experience with people of Chinese descent, I was struck by the apparent almost reverence they showed to their elders. Family units were tightly bonded together and the older generation was venerated and treated with utmost respect. I don't imagine that is so anymore in communist China, and I think I find that regrettable.

However, I don't think Ehrenreich had older people specifically in mind when she wrote this book. I believe she was trying to convey how difficult it is to put on a "customer is always right" face when you have the problems these working people all seem to have.

In regard to the book, do you see any problems with what was written? If you were the editor, what changes would you have made or suggested to make the book even more effective?

Lorrie

When crime statistics are given, they usually refer to percentages of populations.

Ergo, if there were 100 million people in the U.S. in 1930 and there were 100 murders per million per year, there would have been 10,000 murders per year. At that particular time, we would not have heard about most of them. Communication was not instantaneous.

Now, if there are 275 million people in the U.S. in 2000 and there are 90 murders per million per year, there will have been 24,750 murders per year. Notice, the crime rate has gone DOWN , but there are many, many more murders! And we hear about many, many more of them, percentage wise, than we did in 1930, due to instant communication!

These figures are all phoney; just made up by me. But the illustration is accurate. This is where you guys are having difficulty with what the reporting you have heard says vis a vis what your brain is telling you.

I do not think that just elders receive rude treatment-on the whole, I run into very few people that are rude to me. I have dealt with people all of my life and through years of experience have learned how to 'handle' rude or upset people and there has not been that many!

I do feel that young people have been cheated out of the pleasantness of a please and thank you. My son and daughter-in-law teach their children about the 'magic words' and insist that they use them! They are only six and three-I believe that most parents teach these manners when their children are small-something happens as they grow (peer pressure?) and we have rudeness-or is it the self absorption of the young? It's a puzzle!

Fear-You really cannot blame people. Most of these incidents are very rare, but we have to know about them and be aware! Another incident that happened to me. I was washing my car at a car wash. I have a small 71/2 pound Lhasa Ahpso that I had tied to a tree to enjoy watching me work! Two little girls wanted to pet her. I was talking to them, telling them she was very gentle and they could pet her if they wanted to. Their mother's car was next to mine at the vacuum. The girls' mother came charging over and told the children to come away from me in a very sharp voice. When I said that they were ok to pet the dog, she informed me that she did not want them talking to strangers! I understood her concern, but as she was right there I did think she was over reacting. But, I could not blame her-we had just had a little boy killed by two men and it was all over the news. I was a little hurt, but really could not fault her, regardless of what I thought. That's fear and, perhaps, a really good reason for apparent rudeness! I am not male, but I was a stranger!

This seems to be way off the book, but some of the posts were about rudeness and fear and I thought I would throw in my two cents! Peace Wilan

I was watching an author present her book on C-span Book TV this morning and my ears perked up when she declared that we are subjected to reports of the "world's misery" with every television news program. She continued to use the word "misery"....inundated with misery, subjected to misery, etc....which is slightly different than what I had been thinking about the news. Or, maybe it is more specific. She was introduced as "a former nun" and was speaking on her book about Budda. Even though I wasn't paying that much attention to the presentation, I did stop to listen when she said she wondered about the effect of hearing about (seeing? reading?) that much misery in our world.

I know her question is not that different from other thoughts about the 24 hour news, but sometimes, I have an opposite reaction. Sometimes, when I'm presented with the wretched state of people with malnutrition, for example, it actually reminds me how fortunate I am. Just as BE's book has.

BE's book. I think the thing it has done for all of us is make us think and compare our lives to the temporary lives she was living. This is good because most of us are probably far to comfortable in our lives just now. I know that I look at Walmarts employees more carefully than I used to, although since I live in a place that has many many retired people most of the Walmart people tend to be my age or older. The intentional rudeness of the current population attracts me since I truly do not understand why. Where I live, it has little to do with age ( well the horrible day to day language seems to be mostly the young) but everything to do with needing to be and feel important. I can always tell if someone is going to do something awful in a car in close traffic. They will not look at you if they intend to cut you off or turn directly in front of you. Its as if you dont exist. A neighbor once did that to me in traffic without realizing it was me. When I mildly mentioned it at a neighborhood party, they were very apologetic.. Didnt know it was you. So sorry.. Which I guess means its ok to do it to someone you dont know.

betty gregory, I think the point you heard by the author on C-Span about how much misery we hear on TV news on a daily basis is true. Let us not forget that news is a business, the more sensational the story and the longer it goes on, the better the ratings and the higher the advertising rates that can be charged.

I think one thing the book has done is to have us focus on individuals. OUr waitress at a restaurant is no longer "just a waitress" or "the waitress." She's a person, who happens to be working in a restaurnat waiting tables for a living. (I could give other examples, but you know what i mean.)

It's so easy to lump people together. This book nudges us to make us aware of how we think of and treat others.

YES, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO GINGER!

Pat, how did you DO that? Those letters are MARVELOUS!

I read about another book we ought to look into as a follow up to this one we have just read. It is called THE BROKE DIARIES and is by Angela Nissel.

Nissel has been very, very impoverished and came up with a lot of things to do to survive. Sort of the Heloise of being poor.

Now that sounds interesting. Is it New?? I will try and check our library which is small and mostly fiction.

You folks might "enjoy" reading Bob Herbert's Op-Ed column in todays NY Times.

Thanks, Ed...I finally found it--on the online version of the NYT they have Ehud Barak as the Op Ed.

Here's the article Ed's talking about: (You do have to be registered at the NYT site (free):

Unmasking the Poor:

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/30/opinion/30HERB.html?searchpv=nytToday

ED, AND JANE:
Thank you so much for posting the link to that excellent article. Mr. Herbert gives much credit to BE for her book, and there was one paragraph that I thought was important. Much has been said about the remedies suggested for these "working poor" but this is how Bob Herbert sums it up:

"In the absence of policy changes designed to strengthen the social safety net and significantly boost wages, they will continue to struggle, and at times suffer. Because, as Heather Boushey, the lead author of the study, commented, "Work alone doesn't ensure a decent standard of living."

Lorrie

Pat and Mary Page, Thank You for the Birthday wishes.

Ginger

But does boosting the minimum wage really solve anything? That wage goes up, the prices the establishments charge for the increased wages goes up...and the cycle continues. I realize I'm in the minority here, but I still cling to my belief that the only way out of poverty is education and training. If a person wishes to continue an education or be trained, then those opportunities need to be available. For those who do not wish to train/retrain/learn new skills then that's the choice that they make. There are far more opportunities to get the GED, to finish high school at an alternative school, to take training in vocational areas or college courses at local community colleges / outreach programs than ever existed when I was growing up.

Jane-No, boosting the wage does not solve a thing unless it is accompanied by decent, low rent housing, decent, affordable child care (notice that I did not say low wage child care!) affordable and available education and child bearing planning!

I don't think that you are in a minority-I just think the money mind set is a disease!

Peace Wilan

JANE, AND WILAN:
You both have a good point. Simply raising the pay is not the answer. I believe that Ehrenreich made the point that most of the people she worked with felt that they could manage, in different ways, on the salary they were paid, provided they had a decent, affordable place to live, and adequate child care. In my own opinion, these are the problems to address first, if we are to do anything to improve their lot.

Lorrie

Jane, thanks for making that article a clickable. I'm glad more and more writers are picking up on Ehrenreich's book, and as Herbert has done, linking it to other sources.

The two sites below are from the Economic Policy Institute; one a listing of recent articles, and the other, When work just isn't enough by Heather Broushey -- mentioned in B. Herbert's article.

http://www.epn.org/whatsnew/org/EPI-1.html

http://www.epinet.org/briefingpapers/hardships.html

I didn't see that Jane's (a dear friend) #338 was all that clickable. Before giving it, they seem to want everything from your Social Security number to your mother's maiden name. I am not willing to give out some of that stuff. Why the hassle? Why not just give me the Herbert column? I can go to the library and get it. --Ed B (not Ed Z).

Ed: Yes, you can go to the Library and read it, because the Library has a paid subscription to that publication, but SeniorNet does not. Therefore, we can't reproduce it here for that is a violation of the copyright laws.

š jane›

rambler, many of the groups that offer neat freebies on the Internet want you to register. My guess is that they want to be able to contact you to promote their products. For me, a fair trade. I've subscribed that way to the Times and the Trib for years --you enter just once.

I was interested in Barbara Ehrenreich's final statement in her interview with James Fellowes:

"I won't make any predictions. In fact I hate predictions and their substitution—in venues like The McLaughlin Group—for opinions and arguments. Hell, people will do what they want; no "laws" govern human political behavior. But I do know this, based on decades of close observation: defiance is contagious, and America's low-wage workforce is a tinderbox of unmet needs and desires."

Lorrie

As a sort of summation, then, as we wind up this discussion, here are some more thoughts, this one from Katherine Newman, of the Washington Post:

"What is to be done, then, about the shameful hardships they suffer? Ehrenreich ends with an unconvincing bit of socialist bravado: "They are bound to tire of getting so little in return and demand to be paid what they're worth. There'll be a lot of anger when that day comes, and strikes and disruption." Yet nothing in "Nickel and Dimed" suggests that the working poor harbor any such inclinations. Still, I can't blame Ehrenreich for wanting to end on a hopeful note, however forced. As the poor people she met while writing "Nickel and Dimed" can testify, most of the time hope is all you've got to keep you going................."

Before we move this discussion into the Archives, are there any more thoughts or insights you would like to add? Please continue on if you would like, even when a discussion is archived, it is often open to further comments.

Let me say here how much I have enjoyed exchanging comments with all you wonderful posters who added so much to this page! It has been a really pleasurable experience talking about this book--some of the personal stories told here are unforgettable. My utmost thanks to: Jane de Neve, Stephanie, pedln, Rambler(of course), Betty Gregory, Mary Page, Jeryn, Winsum, Paige, Ann, Ginger, Northwest (are you still with us?)Wilan, and Robby. If I have missed someone my deepest apologies.

While we are still on the subject of books, come to the Suggestion box and cast your votes for upcoming books to be reviewed!

Bless you all

Lorrie

Thanks, Lorrie, for your effective and diligent work as Discussion Leader, including thoughtful responses to all of us and keen insight, I thought, on where to steer the discussion. The longer I'm here, the more I appreciate all the unseen and seen responsibilities of DLs. This book was meant for discussion, but you've added the extra care needed for a great discussion.

Ginny, this one should be earmarked in the archives, as well, to offer newcomers a good example of "non-fiction discussion" here.

Actually, when the first fiction discussion was singled out as a great discussion....I thought that potential discussion leaders would benefit from it as much as newcomers. This one, also.

Some other wonderful non-fiction discussions, such as Greatest Generation and Amer. deToqueville, aren't very good examples because of their uncommon length. Maybe there already are some average length non-fiction discussions that are earmarked as good examples (there have been several), but this one just seems to stand out because of everyone's effort (purposeful civility) in light of all the controversial issues....joint credit due to the participants and Lorrie.

betty

Lorrie: As usual, I quickly get lost in computerland. What suggestion box are you referring to? The only one I find refers to games, and I don't think that's what you have in mind.

"The Treasury said yesterday that it would borrow the money needed for the tax rebates now going to taxpayers as part of President Bush's $1.35 billion tax cut." That's from today's N.Y. Times, p. C1.

Virtually all the tax cut goes to the wealthy. Meanwhile, amid all the talk of budget surpluses (year-to-year figures, at best), nobody talks about the national debt, which is god-knows-how-many trillions. I think Alan Greenspan (wisely) wanted to apply budget surpluses against national debt.

We're like homeowners with a trillion-dollar mortgage, and we're ignoring it in favor of giving ourselves (or the wealthliest among us) a big loan.

Look up, Rambler, in the heading above the picture of the Capitol Dome and on the right you'll see a little Suggestion Box, clicking on that will allow you to suggest books for future discussions.

That's a good idea, Betty, we might start featuring both a Non Fiction and a Fiction sample discussion in the heading of the Archives and we can always rotate what we have in our present heading, good idea, thanks!

Lorrie, what a wonderful job you've done, both in suggesting this book in the first place (now high on the best seller lists...so timely) and in addressing the issues in it (on the news and PBS nightly, there was one on last night again)...it's very good that our own Books sections here have kept us so au courant, our grateful thanks for a job well done!

ginny

Ginny has the hiccups.. Ginny has the hiccups.. Hold your breath.

I assume you mean Ginny, or must we all?

We must all, I've been holding my breath for 6 years and have nothing to show for it but a bad complexion, thanks, Steph, for the heads up, have removed the duplicate post, this software is SOOO tricky, you can't go back when you're editing or two of you appear, or three.

ginny

My first visit to a discussion group on SeniorNet, & I happened into one on the Barbara Ehrenreich book, of which I have read only parts, though I've read other works by her. I was interested in Lorrie's remarks about HUD-assisted housing for seniors. I live in a HUD-subsidized building, too, which has reached the end of its 20 years, and now the tenants have been notified that our housing could end at any time. I've been here 18 years. I am 61, have had multiple sclerosis since age 38, and have been in the very-low-income category most of that time. I also have a Ph.D. and teaching experience. Yes, people who do what they're supposed to do to get ahead in this society CAN be unlucky & CAN end up indigent. I know. I seem to be one. Sorry if this message is whiny and self-pitying, but, much as I admire B. Ehrenreich, I almost resent her for having time & energy to play at being poor for a while, when I have to work mighty hard just to find a little time on a typical day for the Internet & my computer, which is a hand-me-down, by the way.

Welcome, humanbean!! You're not alone in questioning the author's "playing at being poor," as I'm sure you've picked up in other posts. (Don't know how far you've read.)

As this discussion is winding down, I hope you'll find other book discussions just starting or scheduled to begin in the next few months....lots to choose. You'll also find other people here who know what it is like to cope with the intellect tugging in one direction and the physical body tugging in another direction. That's rather crudely put, but it describes my experience. So, I hope you'll stick around and help us solve the problems of the universe, I mean, discuss books.

The "library" folder is a good place to hang out. Have you found it?

betty

Why on earth in this great country should anyone who has done what they're supposed to do (as you have done) end up indigent?

I hope you vote and know which party cares about you and wishes to help you.

Hint, it's not the 'Rs' and dubya.

I had a blind sister who got an MS degree from UC Berkeley. So I know what the strugle is.

Keep up the fight and good luck!

Honored and delighted to have you with us, Humanbean. We really need your perceptions.

Humanbean, one of the things that has made this such a successful discussion are the shared personal experiences of the participants.

Thank you for sharing yours, and welcome.

Humanbean, welcome and thank you for sharing your story. I wish you could have found us sooner, obviously you would have added much to our discussion. Lorrie, thank you for facilitating this interesting discussion, you did a great job, allowing us each to share personal experiences.

MaryPage, can I breathe now?

While I never got around to getting the book, and wouldn't have the time to read it right now, I have been following this discussion faithfully. Wow! So many insights...

Thank you all for giving me a lot of food for thought. The personal experiences chronicled here were truly valuable. I do dislike writers/reporters who "live" for a while in someone else's shoes because I think the fact that they can get out any time they wish changes their experience completely. On the other hand, I guess we do get information that we wouldn't be able to get except from those who wear those shoes all the time. In San Francisco the homeless put out a newspaper, written entirely by themselves, printed by homeless, hawked by homeless. While I don't always agree with some of the views, it IS one way to get their perspective. I don't know of any similar project among the working poor--but they're probably too caught up in surviving to have time to write about it.

Thanks again to all of you.

Fran

Just a little addition by way of softening my earlier remarks: I intend to read B. Ehrenreich's book as soon as I can because what she has done is very valuable indeed. (I've read quite a number of reviews of her book.) The people who would most benefit from her experience and insights are probably unlikely to go near the book, but at least it will be there, and for that I for one am thankful!

BE admits that she was 'playing' at being poor, but I think she did an excellent job trying to 'wear the shoes'. Knowing that this was going to end for her and that she would be going back to her 'real' life had to have changed her perspectuive, no matter how hard she tried to not let it. She admits to this, but thankfully and finally, someone gave the working poor a platform and some dignity. I especially liked her wonderful attitude toward this experiment and her obvious love and respect for the people that she met.

I have enjoyed this discussion so much and have had some wonderful, new insight given to me by this exciting, interesting group.

Thanks for letting me take part! Peace Good thoughts Wilan

If you go to http://www.chicagotribune.com and then click Editorials and Opinion and then something called Commentary, you may be able to catch Mollie Ivins' column of today. The headline starts off: Workers are fed up...

I didn't see her article that began with "Workers are fed up..." but I saw one on Social Security that is right on the money, so to speak.

Here are a couple of earlier articles by others on Social Security that may not have made the news big time:

Fair Action Alert

http://globalarchive.ft.com/globalarchive/articles.html?id=010521009981&query=pa\ (interview with Paul O'Neill US Treasury Secretary)

It is a big jump from a good salary to $5.85 an hour in a convenience store. Any time someone could and do stick a gun in your face. But I have to do what I have to do. I have to walk to work now. It is only one block so that's ok. Poor health makes me work part time only. I see everyday folks that are in better health and not 60 years old buying beer cigarettes and junk food. Then they bring out their food stamps. Oh well. Life is good anyway and I still get a kick out of trying to beat the odds. The government is not going to take care of me so I use fashions from 4 years ago, save lefovers, read day old newspapers and left behind magazines. The PC belongs to my brother who was kind enough to give it to me and pay the "NET" bill for me. Now, just how lucky can a girl get? Does my emloyer look at me as a has been? You bet. Do I care? Not at all. I do what I can and that is good enough. I have a room and a cat. It is clean because I keep it so. It is warm because I live in Florida. Lucky me. The best things in my life are not free but MINE. I like it that way. No worries now about keeping up with the "Jones" Only puzzle I have now is why my co-workes and neighbors call me "chuckles". Any comments?

SOLLY: Welcome to SeniorNet and Books & Literature. Have you investigated other discussions on SeniorNet? There is one called Making Ends Meet. There are also lots of good book discussions that can be found HERE. (Just click on the underlined words to go to the place indicated.)