system to its disintegration reconditioning and so on and so forth. it's a wonderful, wonderful opportunity and a great treat fine students in this university. post a wee bit tight with professor adam green at the university of chicago. here's his book, "selling the race: culture, community, and black chicago, 1940-1955". >> visit booktv.org to watch the programs you see here online. type the author or book title in the search bar on the upper left side of the page and click search. you can also share anything you see and booktv.org or clicking share on the upper left side of the page and selecting the format. booktv streams live online for 48 hours every weekend with top nonfiction books and authors. booktv.org. >> host: now, barbara ehrenreich discusses her book

"nickel and dimed" about living in america on low wages. this is about 45 minutes. >> my goodness. i've got to say i'm just a little bit overwhelmed at the number of view. it looks as if we've got standing room only, so make yourself as comfortable as you can. i just can't thank you enough on behalf of ruminator books to come out tonight. a more than pleased to introduce to you, barbara ehrenreich was speaking to us about her read this book "nickel and dimed: on (not) getting by in america" nick collins i missed the fruit of two years of experience within the ranks of those struggling to make ends meet while working full-time jobs, paid at or near minimum wage. simply put, as the two decided to test ourselves commit troops of welfare reform rhetoric that promises a job, any job is the

ticket to prosperity and self-sufficient they. in 1999 and 2000, she left her life as a key western allies and moves from florida to maine to write here in minneapolis, worked as a waitress, hotel maid, cleaning women, nursing home aide and right here, in wal-mart sales clerk with ehrenreich's account as part of the rank-and-file loge rate worse source illuminates the darker side of our economy and makes it impossible to think of those who work to provide services for us dismissively. "the boston globe" says ehrenreich scorn withers, humorous thing, her radical light shines on the "chicago tribune" called her passionate, public, highly lucid and politically engaged. finally, "the new york times" raved about "nickel and dimed," calling it captivating. just promise to read this explosive book cover to cover in passing on to all your friends

and relatives. ms. ehrenreich is a frequent writer for harpers, esquire, the "the nation" and "time" magazine. among them, fear of falling and "the new york times" bestseller, the worst year of our lives. she lives near key west florida. housekeeping about tonight's reading. c-span is taking us for booktv. i'm not sure when it's going to hear. it's kind of example, but it will be on tv someday. as it turns out, you all have wiped pass out of all of our copies of "nickel and dimed." we are only too happy to take reservations for a copy like and will do everything to make sure you get a signed copy. also, i had a few of these index cards left, but they're getting precious in number. if you'd like to ask a question tonight of ms. ehrenreich, because of the sheer number and that this is being taped for television, will be handling this the no card.

if you'd like an outcry to ask a question, please i'll dip your hand as she begins to talk and not come around to give these two as long as they last. by before she's finished up, collect and no card sensual reader questions and answer them. the last little bit of housekeeping as they got to get her out of here by 9:00 kishi is a flight to catch. as much as a valet to bring her here a little bit, with got two move things on as quickly as possible during the signing to make sure she can catch that plane. with all that said, please warmly welcomed, barbara ehrenreich. [applause] [applause] >> thank you. thank you for the nice introduction, susannah. there's so many people here.

i just want to be sure nobody was misled. this is not an investment seminar. [laughter] i mean, i have been trained to write about poverty, especially issues having to do with women and poverty for many years now. i want to say i have just really thrilled that i have got a whole book on this subject because it is not easy to interest the mainstream media and the sorts of issues. i will tell you one and go to illustrate my frustration over the years. this is something that has happened a few years ago. i was taken out to lunch by the editor of a well known national magazine, which will go unnamed here in the interest of may have been a future writing career. and these lunches are really important to freelance writers because often the cost of the lunches were to be paid for the article appeared so you'd eat a

lot. i was pitching him a story idea that has to do with women and poverty and had nice words to it. i thought it was a good idea. this editor was so obviously bored. he was kind of rolling his eyes as we work our way through the gourmet meal we were having, until finally we get to the chocolate dessert in the decaf express says. he said all right, barbara, do your thing and poverty. only, upscale. [laughter] this is the attitude tear. anyway, susannah explains the idea of this book, which arose in a conversation actually with a much better editor at harper's magazine. and i did not suggest that i do this. i suggested that somebody do this. and he said you. and there are ways to.

but the idea was basically to see if at first it was possible to live on the wages i could get as an entry-level worker. and this meant leaving home, finding a cheap place to the event, the cheapest possible consistent with some kind of level of safety and cleanliness. and then to find the best paying job i could, although of course i couldn't use -- not even a real resume or whatever skills i may, not today a political ads for essayists anyways. [laughter] so i don't want to ruin the story for you, the ending or anything, but i'll tie you to resolve right now, which i sort of knew when i left home. i could see and particularly the area where he started out, key west, a town near where you live crummy tourist tourist industry

town. he could see wages are going to be in the 67-dollar range in 1888 when i started. do you know, i could see with the rents were. they looks like it would be very, very hard to put things together. and i think you shou3 together. and i think you should hear in mind that i had a lot to a lot those advantages in undertaking this venture in trying to support myself. for one thing, i didn't have my children with me. they're grown up and they didn't want to live with mom and a trailer park. they were just not interested. the average low-wage workers much more likely to have children to support and take care of. i was strong and healthy and always had a car. so those would so those advantages compared to a lot of people. so the book really turned out to be a story of how hard it is to not get anywhere in america.

how hard you have to work to remain to be part of the working force. and for me this was much of a discovery. susannah told you the kinds of jobs i had. and don't talk because this is minneapolis and the sight of one of my attempts to support myself. i will tell you about my life as a wal martian at wal-mart. and i should explain first, it is not -- it is not that easy. not everybody can get a job at wal-mart. there are things you have to get through. there is the personality test, for example. mostly the personality tests are pretty easy. you've got questions -- and this is a proposition you have to respond to. in the past year, i have

stolen -- check dollar amount below worth of goods for my employers. you can figure that one out, right? had answered that one. my favorite question, which comes up on every personality test somehow. it's easier to work when you're a little bit high. [laughter] but my policy -- my strategy in taking the personality test was always, you know, you can usually tell the right answer, but not to be so blatantly right every time that it would look like i was staking out the test. that always modify a little bit. so actually i got some wrong for that reason here in the twin city area, the home minister had vitesse or she said don't worry, no right or wrong answer.

just that everything. then she goes off to grade it might do on a computer and comes back and said that i got some things wrong. i'm one of them was -- the proposition was, all rules must be followed to the letter at all times. and i did not agree totally. i only agreed strongly. again, not wanting to look. well, she said, the answer is totally. [laughter] you can never be too much of a up at wal-mart. [applause] there's more. you have to pass a tract house. an interesting ritual of humiliation. kenya peace for us please? anyways, i passed out with flying colors. i get $7 an hour, and ladies

wear, which i thought would be genteel. i thought it would be giving fashion tips to ladies. it turned out to be total grand jury. the challenge was to learn wherever it engle hundreds of items went. they're on the floor, all over the place. of course then they would be rotated every three or four days to give you the feeling you're slipping into alzheimer's. i think i'll just give you -- read you a little bit about the orientation of [laughter] associates. remember, there are no employees at wal-mart. one thing interested interesting as there are no employees and customers are often called gas. so, i'll just give you a little sample of this experience. for sheer grandeur, scale and

intimidation value, i doubt if any corporate or haitian exceeds that of wal-mart. i have been told that process will take eight hours, which will include 215 minute breaks and one half hour for e-mail and will be paid for the irregular shift. when i arrived dressed neatly in khakis and a clean t-shirt as befits a wal-mart associate can i find 10 new hires to save myself, mostly young and caucasian and a team of three headed by the personnel manager i got in trouble with tdd orientating that orientating that she caused it. we sit around a long table in a windowless room, each with a exposure of paperwork in front of us in the roberta again give us a pep talk about being a people person and how important that was. we begin with a video about 15 minutes long on the history and philosophy of wal-mart rose an anthropologist might if they were observing the cult of sam. , here comes hamilton from the

back of the work on the start a store, mary's and as for attractive children receive the medal is freedom from president bush -- the early one, after which he probably died, making way for the eulogies. but the company goes on yes indeed. and then he goes through this long video about all the milestones of the corporate expansion, you know, when sales top $100 billion so on. each landmark should one say this just is an adjoining parking not. over and over we hear in voiceover or seeing graphic display, the three principles of wal-mart, which are defiantly not parallel. respect for the individual, exceeding customer site petitions, strive for excellence. anyway, you know, skipping a

limit here, all is not total harmony. we learn a lot about how important we associates are. we learned an associate who invented the idea of the people greater. that's were told. the person who greets you. the people greater us to see that you don't shop lift, to put you on notice for that. and then all is not total harmony, we are told, by the way, that managers are served up eaters, not losses. they are servant leaders. but then we have the video on associate honesty, which shows a cashier being caught as he pockets those from the cash register and ominously as he is led away in handcuffs and centers to four years. the theme of covert tensions overcome by projective attitude continues in a 12 minute video, entitled, you pick a great place

to work. here, various associates testified essential feeling a family, for which wal-mart is so well-known, leading up to the conclusion that we don't need a union. once, the video explains, they no longer have much to offer workers, which is why people are leaving them i would drones. it goes on and on about the evils of unions until you have to wonder and i imagine some of my teenage fellow appointees might be wondering why such gains an average extortionists are allowed to roam free in the land. there is much more than i could ever soar. you know, we go through this handbook for a long time. very, a 17-year-old tyler matters to sonya sonia, 10

african-american women across hermes seems frozen in terror. i have given up on looking perky and i'm fighting to keep my eyes open. no nose or facial jewelry. hearings must be small and discreet, not dangling. no blue jeans except on friday and then you have to pay a dollar for the privilege of wearing them. no grazing. that is, eating from food packages that it's somehow become open and no times faster. the last idea, time fast sends me drifting off in a sci-fi direction. [laughter] and is "the times" these head back to the or 3420, with weekends and days off looted from the 21st century, finally, someone asks a question. the old guy being hired as a people greater wants to know what is time fast. answer: doing anything at all except for working during company time. theft of our time however is not

an issue. there are stretches amounted to many minutes on all three trainers wandering off leaving us to sit there and fan or grocery section or take a chance to visit it a little. i have seen time move more swiftly during seven-hour airline delays. fact, i'm getting nostalgic about seven-hour airline delays. at least you can read a book or get up and walk around or take a leak. and then i go on to describe some of the video training. forgetting module -- a computer module and blood borne pathogens. on what to do in the event the pools of human blood show up on the sales floor. [laughter] ra. he put warning cones around the title. you don project to clothes. i can't stop from trying to

envision a the circumstances under which these rules might arise. an associate of pricing, a gas dryer? i go through six modules in a day and finally i am allowed to leave. and that was the beginning of my career at wal-mart. the book is very much about the work that takes hearing instead. it was too a lesser extent, but certainly very important to me, about also the people i worked with. i was not in a position to interview people, but i learned a lot in the course of working with people. these are people who did not, do not have the escape hatch i have. i always knew i was really a journalist and really going home and going back to be physically easy, very rewarding kind of

work, a work that i love as a writer. some of the people who left a real impression on me and you would meet in the book art gala and joan as they called them. these are very funny, fast talking a come a hard-working middle-aged women, who it turned out were homeless -- actually homeless, but didn't tank they were homeless, did not consider themselves homeless because 102 sleep in. the other had a pickup truck to sleep in that sort of puts you in a higher stratum somehow. people, also lake rosalie and holly as i call them, who were hungry -- actually hungry during the course of her workday. and i must say, with a middle-class blinkers on, for a long time i thought there were just dieting and that's what they were eating lunch and i had

to really eventually deduce that they just not have the money or the food at home for lunch. or people like george, a 19-year-old immigrant from the czech republic worked as a dishwasher in a restaurant in return for the job at night to a dormitory, where he slept in a bed that had just been vacated another man is left during the switch while he was working, something i can only happen in an 18th century. so they're not a lot of polemics in this book. but there is a message i hope. and none is that there is something really wrong. something very fundamentally wrong when people can work so hard, full-time, year-round, and never make enough to live on at any kind of content or dignity. so let me start here intern to

questions or comments. what she. where are they? okay, yeah. i can skip the ones i don't know the answer to. that what i'm doing here. can answer that were neither. how to find an easier question. what do you think of the think of the convenience foods, restaurant and their premium prices for minimum quantity and quality? how do you think it impacts people living on the margins? well, i will tell you, when i was in the twin cities area, i was unable to find an apartment at all. you know, there is nothing below

like i thought available for under 800 or so a month. and i would take anything at that point. i asked rental agents, what do i do? is that you live in a residential motel. that's what you do. so ended up doing that for a while. it is outrageous. $250 a week for a room in this truly creepy motel, which i will not name again. but one of the main points about that as there is no fridge, no microwave, no hotplate. and that meant i was totally dependent on convenience stores and fast food places for food, which is a very expensive way to heat never mind healthy or unhealthy. the rest of the motels were filled with families squeezed into the same size room. so that's my comment is a lot of people are stuck with those

things. let's see. in minnesota, uber to wal-mart. it seems working at low-paying jobs like wal-mart leads to shopping at wal-mart because of the cost. so it is a circle -- a vicious cycle. how quaint b-day? this is from the same comment dean and the area. where are you? hi. yeah, that's a good question. i don't think i really know the fair. but that is true. it's very cheap. it's cheap not only because the reach of workers are paid so little, but the people who make the projects are paid so little. you look at those clothing labels and you won't find anything made in the u.s.a. they are made in the third world and kathie lee, you know, she's one of their brands with sweatshop labor.

that's what the cheapness comes from. all i can say is when the workers start organizing or some thing, respect that efforts and help. but you are right. the prices are low. all right. here is one you mentioned on the radio. the fact you were told to work in any place history portrait before discussing the page. do do you think that's a problem nationally are just in minnesota? i've had similar situations with white collar can oceans. this was an interesting discovery dead-end jobs that is, not only in wal-mart connie go through the application process of the tests and and there is no point at which they call you a day, barbara, we would like to offer you a job at x dollars an hour. would you take that? no compass like you barbara.

show up tomorrow at 3:00 p.m. i thought that was so interesting to just zoom right by that discussion, that little matter of pay. they make you feel like you're really lucky. he passed the test. you get to work for us. i don't know if that's national, but i suspected it because these are large corporations. what see. what do you think of the chicken or egg theory and speculations about poverty? that is crying, metal elements, chemical dependency, police profiling, et cetera. can we really say which comes first? that is, are people really suffering from all these things? i can't give a full and fair to do you know how much depression, mental illness, et cetera there

is. certainly homelessness is well known among working people. estimates are 21st and of the homeless population are people who are jobholders. i don't know how much it works the other way around. for chemical dependency and other things, i can only say it seems to be the firm belief of management, especially with low-paid workers, but not only low paid workers come out every single one of these employees is a druggie, a slacker in the teeth. you know, that is the assumption. on day one, and one of my jobs come a restaurant job, a fellow worker want to make him your purse can be searched in any time. how cannot be? well, it can be. that's entirely legal. you're assuming there's nothing wrong with you. was anyone or any organization helpful in your search for housing and many of the cities?

this is a question. i'll give you the answer for the twin cities. i did go to a private charity at one point. i wanted to see what kind of hope the be and the recommendation of the social worker when i told her what my wages were and then i worked to wal-mart was coming he should go to a shelter. that was the. that was kind of depressing. question, did any people you spoke with think a union might help them? what were your fellow workers opinions of unions? i wasn't able to pull opinions about unions. i'm afraid in situations like wal-mart, sometimes the only people seeing is what they know from the tape, except one interesting and happened a year ago when i was here doing this. and that is that the hotel

workers went on strike in minneapolis. [applause] and that was very exciting. i think it got people thinking because the hotel workers are actually earning more than the average wal-mart workers when they started. and so, i think the fines are people standing up for themselves is contagious potentially, you know, it could spread. looking for answerable questions. the question is, how did she get jobs? i.e. how did you hide all of your talent? that's very flattering because the truth is, but the thing about me was they had no

experience for the jobs i was applying for come except for working in a restaurant, which of course i done any teenager and a college student. but i did not put my entire education, job applications. i just got a phd in cell biology [laughter] enough, it would not let good. they'd say what's wrong with her? but the only thing that stood out about me in these jobs was i was sad to learn. i was inexperienced. i would make the point right here, with all the authority of my phd behind me, there is a lot to learn any job. i mean, i will never use the word unskilled in my life again to describe anything. [applause] there is so much. and you know, it was a struggle and every single job to learn the things i had to come as well as a struggle physically to keep

up because they are jobs that don't have brakes, for example, don't have bathroom breaks. okay question. there seems to be a trend in the u.s. over the last 20 years towards less compassion for those in poverty cared for example, welfare reform, large tax cut. if i may edit this question, tax cuts for the rich and antiunion trends. why is america moving in this direction? what does our future hold? i can't answer the last one about what her future holds. that's up to all of us what we decide. is the way of moving in this direction? well, when anybody can make the kind of complaints that i'm

making here, when anybody raises these issues, they are usually told by someone on the right side of the political spectrum, what are you doing? that's class warfare you see those things. well, the truth was class where was declared by the other side way before. that has been virtually coming out, it had been minimally opposed in unions have been weekend. even the democratic president pulled out the rug from under many, many poor women and their children. and you know, let's not have the classwork be so one-sided. let's give a little fight. i'm constantly looking for simple questions. [laughter] okay, here's a question. i massenet, the cost of living has risen five times since 1974

when it was $2 per hour. wait a minute. minimum wage this person means. why then is there no organized movement i know of to raise the minimum wage to at least 10 hour? well, there is -- there has been some of the more liberal democrats have been pushing to raise the minimum wage permits president $5.15 an hour. there also movements to get a living wage locally. if you have a living wage minimum penetrant the area? is very representative of it here? [inaudible] okay, but $10 an hour would not do it. there was her court released today by jobs now saying actually you need $16 an hour to live in this area. and that's not to live in

luxury, at a middle-class standard even. that is a bare-bones budget to live in this area. so that's -- you know, that has to be the target. let's see. hard to read all these. let's see. how do you respond to the employees who work with you and i chosen to quit high school and other things that kept him from working and better jobs, et cetera you nobody told me that he had just chosen to quit high school, et cetera. you know, sometimes it'll say

what's wrong with these low? why don't they go to school? verse, there are a lot of steps that? verse, there are a lot of steps that? verse, there are a lot of steps that. you get stuck in a trap. it's expensive to before. you have -- you live in a residential hotel. you often don't control your hours. you may want to go to night school, but suddenly there is to night shift tonight at kos. but i feel most about this question though is we need to realize that people in our low-wage job force in the united states are doing work we depend on. somebody's got to do these things. i worked in a nursing home briefly in maine. that is important work. i felt good about that. i mean, somebody has to work in the stores. why do we say what is wrong with

these people to do that when we need it done? why not pay them and respect them for it. [applause] okay. what are my hopes for the book in terms of policy changes? a faint, you know, the things we would need to do in terms of social policy are very familiar to this crowd. you know, something that struck me very strongly coming from this experience is the worst international health insurance. i mean [applause] other countries have it. why can't we? canadians have it. are they so different?

@a strange exotic country. but you know, a lot of these employers offer health insurance, but the amount the employee has to contribute is so great it could be hundreds of dollars a month per family that it's not possible. we need that. we need subsidized childcare for working parents. you know, again, other countries have. high-quality child care, too, by the way. we need to make -- to bring some reality to the right to organize and bargain collectively. that is the right you know. it exists on paper, but it's not enforced by the government. he can be fired for anything. that was one thing brought home to me in this experience, how easy it is to be fired for breaking a little. like at wal-mart, you can't say.

you can imagine the other words you can't say either. you know, people who were involved in union organizing have been fired. but that's illegal, so a those are the rules. the nfl cao estimates 10,000 american workers are fired every year for union activity. that means that right doesn't really exist. so those with a sum of money policy changes. let's see. here's somebody who says wonderful. thank you. he says next time come into it without a car. [laughter] you do it without a car, all

right? i mean, i would see these people coming in now, standing at the bus stop. the jobs are often in the periphery of the twin cities. i would see these people who would have been our commute each day. i can't imagine how i would've done that if. let's see, you mentioned some of the advantages you have been seeking and maintaining. did you notice the difference is that workers of color? i can't say i was in a position to survey that. i would say what i think i did notice was done as a nationally applying at the big discount hotels for hotel housekeeping jobs, for some reason i thought that was going to be easier than waitressing. i would always be steered towards feature scene and i think that was because i was white and english-speaking.

and you know, actually it had been a better season when i was working, it would've been more lucrative to be in waitressing. but that was the extent to which i was able to note that sort of bias. let's see, now, i don't know any mexican-american men in the building trade. not yet, but would like to meet them. the question, to what extent of financial literacy contribute to the dilemma of your fellow workers and what do you think our culture would look like if we all lived high school knowledgeable and skilled with financial matters click i don't think you have to be very financially literate. when you $7 an hour to play

with, there's not a lot of big high-powered mathematical things to deal with. you know, you just can't spend money. i don't know. i mean, he did meet people who had gotten caught up in credit card debt. you know, that goes into the middle class. that's not just a problem of poor people. but that is a really sneaky, addictive kind of thing and i am very disturbed by the -- congress' recent changes in bankruptcy law, which will of course penalize the poor and not the credit card companies, which act like drug dealers really in the way they recruit people. let's see. now, looking for easy ones. what has your work history been

beside the written jobs in this book prior to becoming a journalist. well, i didn't waitressing things like that when i was a teenager. perhaps i should add that in my extended family and in my immediate nuclear family there are plenty of people whose lives have been in these kinds of jobs. so there was not a new -- it was in a new category for me is people or something. it wasn't a strange social environment or should i say, you know, this is a good point to say something. towards the end of every job i would always tell somebody or groups of people that i knew particularly well when i was really doing there. and i would be nervous about that because, you know, i hadn't

said i'm not doing this for the money. i'm on a mission. so it could have been there but they look, i've got to tell you something. i'm really a writer. the response is always yeah? when i finally realized was everybody is a writer. [laughter] that people who are writing poems, keeping journals, writing a book even if some cases. and i think that's important to realize, that it not some different sort of people intellectually speaking who are in the low-wage workforce. today consider what living with a roommate? why, why not? i didn't really know anybody. i couldn't figure out how to do

that, but still open to possibilities that are. what do workers stuck in a downward mobility of constant job loss every employment and this is from wendy talks about having short-term jobs, holiday rushes and then seasonal jobs, et cetera. i don't know how you get out of that, but i do think ultimately, you know, if you are in one job for a while, even however you do it, making connections with other people come in building some kind of solidarity, sun network of friendship and