Nickel and Dimed

This afternoon I finished Nickel and Dimed, our book club book for the month.  On the whole it was OK, but I have some issues with it.  I think that the author tried to do too much, and as a result gave the various aspects of her arguments too little attention. I was most interested in the stories of her co-workers in the various minimum wage jobs that she worked, and less impressed with her whole pseudo-social experiment of making ends meet on a minimum-wage budget.  Had she decided to channel all of her attention to the stories of the underemployed, I think it would have been a more rich and captivating book.  

That being said, if this book has gotten people to think about the need for a living wage its a good thing.  My mom would read this and be pretty stunned by a lot of it, so if people like my mom get involved in advocating for the working poor, I guess its worth reading.

Overall rating: C+.