"Nickel and Dimed" Is January, 2012 Book Club Selection

We're bringing in the new year with a different type of book.  It isn't a novel.  It isn't even written by an African American.  However, the subject matter hits home to many African American families--nationally and especially in Minnesota (see diagram below).  The book we're reading this month is "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America", by Barbara Ehrenreich.  This is one journalist account on what it is like to survive on minimum wage.  


To find out, Ehrenreich moved from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, taking the cheapest lodgings available and accepting work as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing-home aide and Wal-Mart salesperson.  She soon discovered that even the "lowliest" occupations require exhausting mental and physical efforts.  And one job in not enough; you need at least two if you intend to live indoors.  "Nickel and Dimed" reveals low-wage America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surpuring generosity--a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate strategies for survival.  


Now...this book is one single (White) woman's account on poverty.  It is a different story if you are a single African American woman with a family and living in Minnesota.  In this scenario, you would be more likely than a single African American woman with children living below the poverty level living somewhere else other than Minnesota.  Amazing!  Read it.


Black or
African-American
US
(Percent below poverty level)
Minnesota
(Percent below poverty level)
All Families
21.5%
31.2%
Married-couple Families
7.2%
15.1%
Female householder, no husband present
35.6%
45.3%

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2006-2010, American Community Survey



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