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June 15 , 2005
Barbara: Nickel and Dimed is a great read. It is also an unfortunately serious issue in this country. I am most concerned that the people don't seem to be aware of, or concerned about the nature of supply and demand or the ability to demand better wages and benefits. I just read your March 2004 article on Nickel and Diming the Troops -- also an important point. They just keep electing him, though.
I am a clinical/medical psychologist who moved to the beach in north Florida, just outside of a very huge metropolis that claimed to be the "next" Research Triangle Park (RTP, North Carolina). For years now I have not been able to find "professional" level employment and I have gotten by with adjunct college teaching (about $2/hr) childcare ($8-10/hr), elder care($10-15/hr) and pet care ($10/half hour!!). I made notes to write about it someday and my daughter presented me with your book. What a great laugh! I find this large community to be seriously lacking in professional level jobs or pay and to actually be threatened by college degrees. Then there are those with money who are abusive to the people they hire, especially if they can find immigrants and intimidate them into doing more and more for low pay.
As a psychologist I am truly dismayed at the number of people who sneer at those out of work and assume they "just don't have what it takes" because "there are plenty of jobs out there." I especially got this from full-time housewives who have not worked a day in their lives while their husbands appear to be quite overpaid for what they do. But alas, they are also the ones voting for the present administration.
Gayle
North Florida
June 25, 2005
Dear Ms. Ehrenreich,
I wanted to write to you after reading your book, even though I'm not sure why. Perhaps I just want to tell you my story from the last year - which is hardly sad, or tough. But it's a story from a city that I thought was better than I've found it to be. If you wish to use any information from this letter, feel free - just let me be anonymous then. I write to you now personally, as a person, however, because then I can be real.
I've spent the past week reading your book, Nickel and Dimed, on the bus to my new temp job in downtown Pittsburgh. It's a new experience for me, temporary work, especially that I'm temping at a temp agency. They dangle the hopes of getting hired on full-time over my head, while I stay and do their dirty work around the office for $10 an hour. Those ten dollars every hour mark the best pay I've ever seen in my life.
The past year for me has been the most eye-opening, as I moved into a very decently-priced two-bedroom apartment just barely inside the Pittsburgh city limits. My fiance and I split the rent, and I thought we were doing okay until I read your book. It made me realize how amazingly well we are doing after all. To have an entire two-bedroom apartment to ourselves in a good area close to the city is lucky, especially considering our incomes.
My fiance works part-time (about 27 hours/week) at the candy store in the mall 10 miles down the parkway. He makes $6.50 an hour and is allowed no breaks. There are only three employees at the store, and the manager engages in rather shady business practices that makes my fiance extremely uncomfortable. He desperately wishes for a new job.
Before the move, he used to work at Wal-Mart, which gave him more hours and slightly better pay. I read some of the passages from the book aloud to him in the car the other night, the ones about the orientation at Wal-Mart. Lately, he's been remarking about how he almost wants to see if the Wal-Mart here would take him on at his old wage. As I read your words to him, he chuckled bitterly over the cheers, CBL, and the job in general. When I was finished, he responded with, "Yeah. I'm glad I don't work there anymore."
In the meantime, I'm on my fourth job since we moved here. I've kept one job the entire time - I work at a well-known radio station on the weekends running the station, and now as an on-air personality. I have a degree in broadcasting from a very good school, yet, when I accepted the job, I made just $6.50 an hour. Not what I expected from the radio industry. And while it's gone up somewhat from that...it's still not what I hoped it would be.
My first weekday job here in Pittsburgh was for a women's clothing store. In the interview, and when I was hired, it was agreed that I would be full-time (after a week or two of training) at $6.50 an hour. Every time I left the store, a manager had to walk me to the front of the store, paw through my purse to check for stolen goods, then give me a go-ahead to actually leave. One time, when the manager couldn't pull herself away (it was only ever two girls working at a time), she checked my purse at the register, then I had to hold both my purse and coat over my head on my way out, being stared at by every single customer in the store and the mall. And then, there were my hours. After three months, I was lucky to be working 10 hours a week. And when I inquired about what had happened to the full-time I was *in the computer as working* and the benefits I ought to be eligible for, the manager laughed. "Who told you that? We don't have enough hours available to hire anyone full-time."
I quickly began a new job hunt when I heard that, and soon left them (with no notice) for a job at a large media retail store. For $7 an hour I got to help people find the books they were looking for, the videos they'd heard of, the music they loved, and the games they played. As for shrink (stolen goods), I had to go through a pat-down every time I left the store, but it was not nearly as humiliating as the last one. There were benefits, available after working 60 days of full-time (which I did). Then, as the enrollment date grew nearer, I was inexplicably bumped down to 'part-time.' I still worked full-time hours, but my classfication was all that mattered, and the benefits I hoped for flitted away from my grasp like a butterfly. And I liked the job, I really did. I worked my best at serving customers and selling the store's 'memberships' - there were goals to meet each week, measured in number of years sold. For months they told me if I could just sell a few more memberships, I could get promoted and a raise - and then they fired me after 5 and a half months for not selling enough of them.
I know I'm kind of rambling here. I apologize if you've heard this from people from across the country before, and I forgive you if you skim through this.
I launched into a new job hunt after the firing. I started putting out my resume everywhere I could (it was pretty hefty from all the projects I worked on in college) and waiting by the phone all day for calls. After three weeks of no replies, I began to get desperate, replying to receptionist wanted ads and even some telemarketing ones. And that's when the calls came in.
Three calls in one day, and two interviews at temp agencies later, and I was promised a response within a week. When the phone rang on that next Monday, I leapt - and wasn't offered a receptionist position, but a temping job at the agency itself.
I've been working the temp job for three weeks now. Any day I could be told to go home. But the company pays so well, with such good benefits (only if you're there full-time, of course) that I'm killing myself there to get the one job they have open.
While I had quite a bit to start on a year ago, it's been almost all eaten up by rent, food, and gas. My car is in such poor shape right now that I won't drive it anymore - I take the bus. I'm paying over $100 a month for health insurance that barely covered anything from my yearly checkup a month ago. My fiance is still in school, so he's still covered for health insurance, but he can't work the same number of hours per week due to classes. Every month goes by with me wondering when things are going to get better for us.
Reading your book let me know that we're not alone - not only that, but we're doing pretty well, considering. Things could be so much worse. But the people who can make the differences necessary aren't aware, or if they are, they don't care, and that's the scary bit. I'm not important - the lower-class just isn't important to America.
I saw a mural on my way home from work yesterday. Painted on the side of a building, it featured a few policemen, a few firemen, and a dog. A banner stretched above their heads read "Remember those who serve - lest we forget." And I wondered, does the person who painted that remember who served them at the diner the night before?
I hope I haven't annoyed you too much with all this. Thank you for your research, your willingness to try something potentially dangerous, and for sticking it through enough to write the book. I look forward to reading your future writings.
Take care,
[name withheld by request]
June 27, 2005
Dear Ms. Ehrenreich,
Yesterday I picked up a copy of Nickel and Dimed. I started reading it while I was at work. (I am a bookseller) I've seen it many times, as it is one of the better selling summer reading books for students. Anyhoo, I brought it home, read it and thought: Oh my, this really hits home.
See, I am a single mother of four. I make $7.25 an hour to assist people who "think" they are better than me because of social status. It boggles my mind that they have this belief when they are incapable of grasping even the basic concepts of grammar or alphabetical order.
Back to what I was originally saying before my little rant: I am a single mom. My book-selling job is my main source of income. I do receive a laughable amount of child support, a whopping $48.00 per week. I also receive food stamps, which equal a little over what I pay in income tax every month.
My "affordable" housing is $535.00 per month. Here we have 5 people living in a tiny, 2-bedroom apartment. Not to mention the other necessary bills that get exceedingly harder to pay as the children get older. Needless to say, this has ruined my credit.
And too, it really doesn't help that I have to incurable autoimmune diseases that keep me in pain pretty much all the time. But you do what you have to do, as you saw during your research.
I would love to be able to say that this is my research. It might make life a little more bearable. Hell, it could be research for my future; who knows?
I have to say that dealing with the soccer moms and the pretentious *$!#%*, and seeing how truly unhappy they are when they use their "disposable income", I don't want what they have. I just want for things to be a little easier on my kids.
I think that being in the boat we are in, we are better for it. My children are wonderful kids and they know the value of a strong family unit. I know true happiness because we experience it too infrequently here. But when we have it, it has nothing to do with money. We laugh like drunks, dance around the house and sing. We are a family very much in love with one another. And that is what gets me through the long days of running to find educational materials for the wealthy and their children.
I just hope that when the teachers assign your book to these upper middle class kids as required reading, that the kids get what life is like for the rest of us.
Sorry, for rambling so much. It must be overwhelming when strangers tell you more than you need to know. But I wanted to let you know that your book touched me. And I want to thank you for taking the time to see how we survive.
Sincerely,
A. J.
July 26, 2005
Dear Ms. Ehrenreich:
Good day. My name is Susan Reed. I recently attended your speaking engagement at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. I attended the engagement with the People's Resource Center, as I was working in their Housing Assistance Dept. at the time. First of all, I must tell you how impressed I was with your sense of humor, willingness to experience poverty first-hand and overall common sense. My spirits were lifted after attending your forum.
Given my impressions, I left your speaking engagement wishing that you could go undercover to research the family court/child support system. I have lost just about everything because of it and have had to live for several years enormously frustrated, incredulous, destitute and without options -- just as you did for your research for "Nickel & Dimed." Here is a synopsis of the past couple of years and how I've gotten to where I am.
My ex and I had our second child back in 2001. A beautiful little girl. When she was born, my ex and I were no longer together, unfortunately. At the time, my ex did not want sole or even joint custody so I did almost all the childrearing with both our children (our
oldest, a wonderful son was 12 at the time). A little while after our daughter was born, paperwork was submitted for child support. We had some extenuating paperwork submitted as well, since our daughter was born with pediatric reflux and expenses were difficult for me to manage on my own. Additionally, my ex had previously agreed to pay back a significant amount of daycare expenses, which I now needed.
All the paperwork was submitted, but my ex balked when approached by the State's Attorneys office. In fact, coincidentally, in court the
attorney representing the State even referred to my ex's tactics as "Nickel and Diming" me when he kept arguing why he shouldn't have to pay this expense or that. That's basically when the nightmare started.
After several court dates, he was, in fact, legally ordered to pay me about $11,000 in back child support and expenses -- most of which were past daycare costs that he had agreed to pay me back for. When he was court-ordered to pay this amount, he stated that he couldn't afford it. Yet, somehow -- in the end -- he found a way to afford quite an expensive law firm to represent him and get out of almost the entire judgment amount. Given the hourly charge I was told he was paying, he spent more to get out of the amount then what the actual amount of the order was.
Prior to this all of this happening, my Dr. had spoken to him about being financially and physically responsible to our children, for obvious reasons, but also because I have physical health problems which are aggravated by stress. Instead of heading this request, he chose not
to see the children for almost five months and made getting any type of support a chore in itself. So, needless to say, I was getting really stressed out over the whole thing -- which just made my medical conditions that much worse.
So, when he finally petitioned for visitation after five months, I thought some reprieve might be in sight as all these issues were being
addressed and I thought would define his role better. He and I talked about some of these issues privately, so when we arrived in court for a visitation hearing, I thought we were on the same page. I was agreeing to what I thought was an order that allowed him not to pay support while I tended to my medical issues. It was suppose to be an "agreed" order which basically obligated him to be reliable. It seems so incredibly ridiculous a proposition now, but being that I felt desperate and harassed, I was willing to try anything -- in hopes of getting the situation on the up and up.
Given our economic inequities, he had an attorney and I did not. So, his attorney writes up this order which basically reads something
completely different than what I was actually "agreeing" to. I refuse to sign it, but after I left court they turned this order in. At the
time, I only had very little savings and so I tried going it without an attorney -- thinking I could just explain what happened. But, instead I was met with legal system that doesn't support those trying to fend for themselves. So, I spent almost the last of the money I had trying to undo my huge error of judgment, but after several weeks, I couldn't afford it.
Soon thereafter, I lost just about everything I had, my car (which I was able to get back), my apt. (by eviction), health insurance, use of any type of credit, savings and, most importantly, my children in an extremely significant way. I went from parenting everyday of their lives, to being a spectator in many ways -- as he was now their legal parent. I basically had to grovel and agree to whatever time he would give me with the children -- which initially was written up as nothing. Completely ridiculous and unfair (especially to our daughter who had never been with him for more than about 36 hours ever), so I really pushed, and ended up with 5 day a week visitation with the youngest, 3 days with the oldest -- without any legal benefit. In fact, his attorney even put in that child support could be requested from me.
So for the past two and half years, I have maintained the same status quo with the children, primarily, but because I haven't wanted to give them up, I've been forced to live hand to mouth with them ever since. It's been a nightmare and I don't say that lightly. I still have no savings to speak of, no credit cards, no bank account or anything to fall back on. Everything I pay for has to be paid in person, via money order or not at all. Thankfully, several months ago, I became re-employed with a past employer and now I am starting to see what might be the light at the end of the tunnel financially. Just last week I was given a raise and a promotion at my new job.
Unfortunately, I'm still cornered where the children are concerned though. With my promotion, my hours were changed, therefore I need to change my schedule with the children a bit. Yet, my ex is only willing to allow visitation on the schedule that is in place now, so I am losing two days of parenting time with the children just this week -- even though they want to see me and I them.
I can't even put into words how much anxiety and helplessness this whole situation brings. He could ask for support at any moment, which he threatens constantly, and I would probably be homeless all over again. Every week going forward, I may be losing more and more time with the children -- only because financially, I can't afford not to. My only recourse now is either his agreement or court intervention. As it stands right now, I don't see either happening. I don't qualify for legal aid, even though I live under the federal poverty level, so I really don't have any recourse until my circumstances change.
So, with all this said, if you are ever given the opportunity to write or research about the family court system, please do so. I would love
for someone of your caliber, reputation and common sense to share stories like mine -- and I know they are out there -- for the benefit of the children involved.
Thank you so much.
Regards,
Susan Reed Page 3 |
