Nickled and Dimed

I have just finished reading an article found in Mother Jones that I thought I would share with you. The article based on the research done for the revised edition of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by journalist Barbara Ehrenreich. 
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/08/nickel-and-dimed-afterword

If you don't know this writer than you owe it to yourself to become acquainted. Her book first issued back in 2001 wrote about the working poor and the struggles of trying to live on minimum wage.  She did this by cutting herself off from the her safety net of family and friends and living at various locations doing the work ranging from waitress to Wal-Mart associate. All minimum wage jobs. No matter what it paid she had to support herself on the wage she could get.

Her experince and relationships she developed with other in the same situation was the basis of the first edition. This later edition is an update of what is going on today 10 years later. Based on what she is finding the situation hasn't improved in fact it has gotten worse. She calls it war on the poor. Where cities make it more difficult for the poor to survive in this new economy we live in.

On some of the things she says about cities and their fines I can only verify based on my own experience as a former city employee who has set in meeting where the PD rep spoke about a situation as a potential revenue maker in fines that could be generated. There is something inherently wrong with that.