This isn t the first surprise for acclaimed author Barbara, who set out to research low-wage life firsthand, confident she was prepared for the worst. But one $7-an-hour job won t pay the rent: she ll have to do back-to-back shifts, as a chambermaid and a waitress. She recognizes that such an antagonist is intangible and difficult to pin down, so she constructs more material antagonists in her bosses, including Ted and Howard, as well as the more faceless corporations for which she works.Can a middle-aged, middle-class woman survive, when she suddenly has to make beds all day in a hotel and live on $7 an hour? Maybe.

Antagonist: In general, Barbara’s antagonist is economic culture in America, which accepts the acute distress of low-wage work as a given.

After growing increasingly frustrated with the way her team leader at The Maids, Holly, must stoically work through dizziness, pain, and stress, Barbara screams into the phone at her boss, Ted, fuming at his willingness to put profits above the well-being of his workers.

Climax: Each chapter has its own climax, but one scene in Maine is particularly climactic.

Setting: Key West, Florida Portland, Maine Minneapolis, Minnesota.When Published: 2001 (with an afterword from 2008).Where Written: United States (Florida, Maine, Minnesota).Full Title: Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.Her book also sought to counter the idea that economic growth and full employment would do away with desperate poverty, since both were in evidence at the time she was writing. In fact, part of Ehrenreich’s goal was to show that this time, perceived by the mainstream as prosperous, was not a period of prosperity for everyone, and that most low-wage workers were entirely left out of the economic growth benefiting many other Americans. This was also a time of economic growth and near-full employment for the United States, which many today-especially after the 2008 economic crisis-remember as a time of relative wealth and abundance. As Ehrenreich was beginning her experiment, this law was beginning to kick in, meaning that millions of Americans formerly on welfare were now about to join the workforce (in most cases the low-wage workforce).

In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed into law the “Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act,” a piece of welfare-reform legislation that drastically reshaped welfare programs, reduced federal spending on welfare, and required many to work in exchange for receiving social benefits.

Nickel and dimed online book