Barbara Ehrenreich on Special Costs

The following excerpt is taken from her 2001 bestseller Nicked and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America. p. 27-28. To write this book she went undercover and worked as a waitress, hotel housekeeper, Wal-Mart employee and maid and tried to live on the money she earned.

There are no secret economies that nourish the poor; on the contrary, there are a host of special costs. If you can’t put up the two months’ rent needed to secure an apartment, you end up paying through the nose for a room by the week. If you have only a room, with a hot plate at best, you can’t save by cooking up huge lentil stews that can be frozen a week ahead. You eat fast food or hot dogs and Styrofoam cups of soup that can microwaved at a local convenience store. If you have no money for health insurance–and the Heathsides’s niggardly plan kicks in only after three months–you go without routine care or prescription drugs and end up paying the price…Marianne’s boyfriend lost his job as a roofer because he missed so much time after getting a cut on his foot for which he couldn’t afford the prescribed antibiotic.

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