Patron Saint of Low-Wage Workers to Visit UB

In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich sat at a swanky business lunch with her editor and discussed the welfare reforms that were about to push four million women into a workforce that generally paid $6 or $7 an hour.

That conversation took her from her six-figure salary to the trenches where she scrubbed toilets and waited tables alongside the working poor. The time she spent as an undercover journalist trying to scrape together a living in different places around the country is chronicled in her book "Nickel and Dimed."

She will talk about that best-selling book and its larger themes Wednesday night at Alumni Arena as part of the Distinguished Speakers Series. The talk will be one of many she has given at universities across the country that, like UB, have designated the book required reading for incoming freshmen.

"My cynical suspicion is that they assign this book as a way of saying to students, 'See, if you're not careful, if you don't do your work, this is what will become of you,'" said Ehrenreich.

But during her campus visits, Ehrenreich has discovered that students are reacting much more strongly to the assignment than she had originally expected.

"The response has been wonderful, very positive," she said.

Though she has encountered more supporters than detractors, she said the reaction has been equally strong from critics and fans alike. Republican groups on a couple of campuses organized protests to coincide with Ehrenreich's visits, inundating parking lots with signs and flyers.

Similarly, the debate to raise minimum wage has been a fervent one. Ehrenreich said she doesn't understand why the call to pay America's blue-collar workers a living wage has been met with such outcry.

"These people make up 30 percent of the workforce. Nobody is outraged when these corporate executives get millions of dollars in raises; nobody talks about the economy collapsing," she said.

In fact, the year Ehrenreich joined the ranks of low-wage laborers to research her book was a time of unprecedented prosperity in the United States. Her first job, which paid $2.43 plus tips, hardly reflected those profits.

Indeed, none of the jobs Ehrenreich took - some of them two at a time - indicated that America's booming wealth had begun to trickle down.

Though economists are quick to point out that wages rose roughly 55 cents in 1999, those figures are a far cry from the $14 hourly judged necessary to constitute a living wage for a family of three, as reported by The Economic Policy Institute.

While some have scoffed at the idea of a $14 minimum wage, considering it an exorbitant, pie-in-the-sky figure, Ehrenreich notes that the disparity between that wage and what is paid now have turned some basic necessities into unattainable luxuries for many.

"The ($14 per hour) budget includes health insurance, a telephone and child care at a licensed center, for example, which are well beyond the reach of millions," she wrote.

Readers of the book have voiced surprise at the America Ehrenreich encountered, while others have praised her for putting the reality of their lives into print. Either way, the book has galvanized large segments of the population.

"The question people always ask is 'What can I do?' and that is hard to answer because so much of it is localized," she said.

Still, she finds it heartening that so many people have answered the call to action. She encourages local groups to set up information tables outside her lectures in order to tap the crowds' desire to improve working conditions and remedy the wealth gap.

Though Ehrenreich's account of working-class life and the America she encountered has infuriated many readers, she says that anger has motivated many people to set right societal wrongs.

"People don't expect this of the American Dream," she said. "You don't think 'I'm going to work really hard and be on the verge of homelessness.'"

More on Barbara Ehrenreich

• Barbara EhrenreichOs best-selling book, ONickel and Dimed,O is required text for freshmen enrolled in UB101 this fall.


• In 1998 Ehrenreich went undercover as a minimum wage worker to conduct research for her book.


• According to Ehrenreich, minimum wage workers make up 30 percent of the national workforce.


• EhrenreichOs first job as an undercover journalist paid $2.43 per hour plus tips.


• EhrenreichOs critics do not support her proposition to raise minimum wage to $14, what she believes is the minimum needed to provide the necessities of life for a family of three.