Byline: Barbara Ehrenreich; 1999-01-01; Harper's; pages pp37-52
Report: Other People's Work: Factories
Tags: low-wage earners, posed as, worked as, working women
Article Links- "NIckel-and-Dimed" via Harper's website (subscription required)
- Letters to the editor re "Nickel-and-Dimed" via Harper's website (April 1999, p 9, subscription required)
- "When Will Waitresses Write Their Own Books" - Lauren Sandler - Newsday (via commondreams.org, also in cluster Undercover Journalism Debatedl )
"At the beginning of June 1998 I leave behind everything that normally soothes the ego and sustains the body -- home, career, compansion, reputation, ATM card -- for a plunge into the low-wage workforce. There, I become another, occupationally much diminished 'Barbara Ehrenreich' -- depicted on job-application forms as a divorced homemaker whose sole work experience consists of housekeeping in a few private homes. I am terrified at the beginning, of being unmasked for what I am: a middle-class journalist setting out to explore the world that welfare mothers are entering, at the rate of approximately 50,000 a month, as welfare reform kicks in. . . . "
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Rights: Restricted access to online material.