In Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, Barbara Ehrenreich tells a powerful and raw story of everyday survival. His story transcends the divide that exists between rich and poor and conveys a powerful account of the dark corners that lie somewhere beyond the popular depiction of American prosperity. Through this book the reader will be intimately introduced to the world of the “working poor,” a place unknown to the vast majority of wealthy and middle-class Americans. What makes this world especially real is the fact that we have all met the hardworking hotel maid, the store clerk or the restaurant waitress, but we almost never think about what their real lives are like? We routinely ignore these people as almost invisible and they are relegated to the background of our normal routine. But they are real people with real, serious problems, and even by conservative estimates, there are millions of them struggling to persist every day. What makes this book so compelling is that Ehrenreich does not document the daily lives of the workers. poor by analyzing government statistics or observing people from some distant place. Rather, Ehrenreich becomes a member of the working poor, and his goal is quite simple: he wants to find out if he can match his income to his expenses. Nickel and Dimed is a story that details the results of Ehrenreich's "practical experiment," but raises concerns that go far beyond its original focus. The book opens with Ehrenreich having a lunch meeting with Lewis Lapham, the publisher of Harper's Magazine. One topic discussed at lunch was poverty in America. Both Ehrenreich and Lapham wondered how “some four million women about to be thrust into the job market… middle of the paper… the most jaded and conservative readers should be able to conduct beneficial self-reflection” . on the condition of the working poor. Even American politicians and policymakers, many of whom appear to be drastically out of touch with the daily reality faced by a percentage of Americans, should read the book. Perhaps the lasting contribution of Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed is the realization that poverty is not a consequence of unemployment and simply having a job is not a ticket out of poverty. As Ehrenreich herself noted, most of the people she lived with and around were not drug dealers or prostitutes, they were just workers who didn't have the capital needed to rent a normal apartment. Ehrenreich's book has the potential to open the eyes of many Americans, and perhaps if more people were aware of it, some positive change could be the result..