If you are reading this review, then chances are you do not earn your living in one of the professions that Barbara Ehrenreich assayed while researching Nickel and Dimed. If you are only earning seven dollars and change an hour, then odds are you trade off computer ownership and Internet access in favor of things like food and lodging. By the same token, if you are reading this review, then chances are you are almost certainly beneficiary, either occasional or daily, of the labors performed by Ehrenreich's contemporaries.

Nickel and Dimed represents her examination of the consequences of welfare reform in the United States. She set out to learn how people who make their living working at low wage, service-oriented jobs — the sort of jobs champions of welfare reform usually tout when they speak of job creation in the United States. To this end, Ehrenreich decided to put herself in the shoes of the people — and in her experience, these workers are primarily women — trying to make ends meet on six to seven dollars and hour. Nickel and Dimed recounts her experiences working as a waitress and hotel housekeeper in Florida, a house cleaner and dietary aide in Maine, and a Wal-Mart associate in Minnesota.

Ehrenreich established a series of parameters to structure her experiment. At the most basic level, her goal was "to spend a month in each setting and see whether I could find a job and earn, in that time, the money to pay a second month's rent." Although limited in scope, this decision reflects the fundamental challenge facing low-wage workers in the United States. As she notes in the introduction, "Almost anyone could do what I did — look for jobs, work those jobs, try to make ends meet. In fact, millions of Americans do it every day, and with a lot less fanfare and dithering."

Once she enters the low-wage workforce, the account of Ehrenreich's experiences quickly takes on a Dickensian air. While visions of Florida restaurants and Maine maid services don't provoke the same visceral reaction as accounts of nineteenth century London workhouses, the careful reader will note certain similarities. At times, Nickel and Dimed reads as a repetitive tale of long hours, tedious tasks, stress injuries and petty-minded bosses. Whether Ehrenreich is waiting tables, cleaning houses or returning discarded merchandise to its proper place on the Wal-Mart floor, the nature of her labor doesn't change all that much, and the rhythm of her writing reflects the similarities among her various occupations. To her credit, she supplements the anecdotal drudgery with copious statistical footnotes and insights about her coworkers' little workplace rebellions, her employers' charismatic appeal to the people they employ and her customers' various failings and offhand cruelties.