A State of Emergency
- Independent Ink
- Nov 22
- 4 min read
Writes Diana Henriques, “Captivating…Just promise that you’ll read this book from cover to cover and pass it on to your friends and relatives.”
By Bharat Dogra
Recently the word -- affordability -- has acquired a new significance in the context of the mobilization of working class of New York in the elections for the post of Mayor. It is one of the key campaign slogans used by Zohran Mamdani, who eventually won the elecations.
The increasing difficulties faced by the working class of many cities in the US to meet their essential needs in satisfactory ways is belatedly attracting much needed attention. In this context a book has acquired a lot of urgency; written way back in 2001, the issues this book raised then are even more important today. Nickel and Dimed was written by Barbara Ehrenreich, who made immense contributions to bring focus to the marginalised sections of society, died on September 1, 2022.
Barbara Ehrenreich was an American author and political activist, an important figure in the 1980s and early 1990s as a part of the Democratic Socialists of America. A respected award-winning writer and columnist, she had a global readership with 21 books. Her books are best known for their strong voice for justice and dignity for the weakest sections of society.
Barbara became famous following the publication of her book Nickel and Dimed – On (Not) Getting By in America. To write this book she went undercover—hiding her real identity while working as a shop assistant, household cleaner and waitress. With her experiences she revealed that even with the best of efforts it is difficult to earn enough to meet essential expenses. Also, the working conditions in several lines of work are injurious to health as well as to dignity.
Towards the end of the book, while drawing conclusions from her experiences, Barbara quotes from studies regarding affordability in terms of matching income and expenses in US cities in the late 1990s or around that time. She quotes the Economic Policy Institute that at that time a wage rate of $14 an hour was needed to provide a living wage for a family of one adult and two children.
However, this did not include common expenses like restaurant meals, internet access, wine, liquor and cigarettes. Even then, this was much lower than the wage of $7 or $8 Barbara found to be the most common wherever she worked or sought work at that time in the course of her assignment. What is more, she found on the basis of the available data that about 60% American workers earned less than $14 an hour.
The working conditions as she saw and experienced were also such as to subject workers to very oppressive conditions. Barbara wrote, “When you enter the low-wage workplace—and many of the medium wage workplaces as well—you check your civil liberties at the door, leave America and all it supposedly stands for behind, and learn to zip your lips for the duration of the shift. The consequences of this routine surrender go far beyond the issues of wage and poverty. We can hardly pride ourselves on being the world’s preeminent democracy, after all, if large numbers of citizens spend half their waking hours in what amounts, in plain terms, to a dictatorship.”
Describing the harm caused to health and dignity as well as the difficulties in meeting basic needs, Barbara says that these workers are working in emergency conditions. She writes, “This is how we should see the poverty of so many millions of low-wage Americans—as a state of emergency.”
Housing is a serious problem for the urban poor as half or more of the earnings go to pay the rent for whatever poor housing conditions they can manage. Comparing this to her original life as a writer, Barbara says that as a member of the rich class, the annual housing subsidy she received – over $20,000 a year in the form of a mortgage-interest deduction “would have allowed a truly low income family to live in relative splendour”.
This shows the extent to which government budgets are biased in favor of the rich, instead of giving priority attention to the needs of the poor.
All this is based on this book which was a New York Times bestseller. In fact, while praising this book in NYT, Diana Henriques had written, “Captivating…Just promise that you’ll read this book from cover to cover and pass it on to your friends and relatives.”
Dorothy Gallagher stated in a review in The New York Times Book Review, “Valuable and illuminating…We have Barbara Ehrenreich to thank for bringing us the news of America’s working poor so clearly and directly, and conveying with it a deep moral outrage.”
A veteran journalist, commentator and grassroots reporter, Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now within a Framework of Justice, Peace and Democracy. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, A Day in 2071, Man over Machine and Planet in Peril.
Courtesy countercurrents.org