Twenty-five years after Barbara Ehrenreich went undercover in America’s low-wage economy, Nickel and Dimed reads less like history and more like a description of the present. Her account of scraping by on poverty wages documented a reality much of the country found convenient to ignore.
Maximillian Alvarez revisits the book and argues that its central insight — that no work is truly “unskilled,” only underpaid — has only become more urgent for today’s working class.
Originally published by The Real News Network.
