Free market capitalism seems to promise an utopian world where people prosper with the growing economy, the market miraculously rejuvenates itself in the face of depression, and everything is dictated by the axiomatic theory of supply and demand. However, this alluring facade of the tremendous apparatus omits many of its individual cogs: the working class people, whose daily struggles are to put hot food on the table and a roof over their heads. In Nickel and Dimed, author Barbara Ehrenreich expresses her outrage at the situation of the working class. Recounting her experiment to survive on low wage jobs, she illustrates the arduous lives of working class people. Ehrenreich portrays the dehumanization of people working minimum wage jobs by describing the inhumane treatments they face, the demanding labor they perform, and the lack of privacy in their personal lives. 

Ehrenreich argues that both corporations and customers treat minimum wage workers inhumanely. She recalls her job hunt in the very beginning of her experiment. 

My next stop is Winn-Dixie, the supermarket, which turns out to have a particularly onerous application process, featuring a twenty-minute “interview” by computer since, apparently, no human on the premises is deemed capable of representing the corporate point of view. (Ehrenreich, 13)

Ehrenreich describes the job interview with acrid sarcasm. Remarking that “apparently, no human on the premises is deemed capable of representing the corporate point of view”, she conveys that job seekers were not even being allocated an interviewer to receive the slightest warmth of humanity; they are greeted only by the cold, dead computer screen. The corporation is stingy on both its employee budget, and its kindness to workers. Months later, in her maid career, Ehrenreich experiences further degradation. Her job requirement is not only to clean the floor, but also to demonstrate complete inferiority to her client. 

Maddy assigns me to do the kitchen floor. OK, except that Mrs.W is in the kitchen, so I have to go down on my hands and knees practically at her feet. No, we don’t have sponge mops like the one I use in my own house; the hands-and-knees approach is a definite selling point for corporate cleaning services like The Maids. … A mop and a  full bucket of hot soapy water would not only get a floor cleaner but would be a lot more dignified for the person who does the cleaning. But it is this primal posture of submission—and of what is ultimately anal accessibility—that seems to gratify the consumers of maid services. (84)

Ehrenreich sharply identifies the absurdity in her assignment. Although using a mop and soap water is more efficient for the worker and yields better results for the client, the maids are limited to using their hands, merely because such an approach depicts the conventional stereotype of maids: their innate obedience. Corporations consider this “a definite selling point”, thus forcing the maids to comply; consumers like Mrs.W are gratified by “this primal posture of submission”, as if that is the primary reward to their spending. As a result, Ehrenreich and the other maids are compelled to kneel before their customers and clean the floor without dignity. From both their employers and their clients, minimum wage workers receive little monetary reward but abundant denigration.

Minimum wage workers have to engage in demanding labor, which causes severe damage to their bodies. Ehrenreich again deploys her sarcasm to provide context: “the break room summarizes the whole situation: there is none, because there are no breaks at Jerry’s” (30). Be it serving, scrubbing or selling, employees are expected to work nonstop for long hours. The physical demand is only compounded by the nature of the jobs. Ehrenreich complains about her vacuuming work:

What about my petulant and much-pampered lower back? The inventor returns to the theme of human/machine merger: when properly strapped in, we too will be vacuum cleaners constrained only by the cord that attaches us to an electrical outlet, and vacuum cleaners don’t have backaches. (74)

Vacuuming is laborious work. Ehrenreich is to carry the heavy vacuum cleaner on her back, ignore the backache, and clean for several hours continuously. She describes this process of dehumanization and mechanization as the vacuum cleaner is “merged” with her body, and her physical limit is only “constrained by the cord that attaches [her] to an electrical outlet.” Minimum wage jobs push the workers to damage their bodies in exchange for money, which often has irreversible impacts. Interviewing her colleagues, Ehrenreich discovers that most are enduring physical illnesses. “Lori and Pauline are excused from vacuuming on account of their backs…Helen has a bum foot… Marge’s arthritis makes scrubbing torture; another woman has to see a physical therapist for her rotator cuff” (89). The long term impact of minimum wage jobs on the health of workers is evident. Merely among Ehrenreich’s dozens of coowokers, many are suffering back pain, bum foot or arthritis, all illnesses that should have exempted these people from working at The Maids. However, due to the lack of income, they are forced to continue cleaning and scrubbing despite the pains, thereby deteriorating their conditions. The physical abuse of minimum wage jobs on its workers further dehumanizes the working class. 

Minimum wage workers’ “private” lives are without privacy. Because of monetary constraints, most working class people are forced to share limited living spaces with many others. Ehrenreich’s dwelling in Blue Haven illustrates the situation:

As It turns out, the mere fact of having a unit to myself makes me an aristocrat within the Blue Haven community. … My neighbors are crowded three or four into an efficiency, or at most a one-bedroom, apartment. One young guy asks which unit I’m in and then tells me he used to live in that very same one himself–along with two friends. (70) 

The contrast is astounding. Ehrenreich, a minimum wage worker with no children and some allowance from her actual life, is still “an aristocrat” in her social class, who alone can afford the living space that was often squeezed with three or more people. Most people have to find friends to share but one bedroom. At this level of crowdedness, privacy is a foreign concept. Surprisingly, even Blue Haven proves to be one of the better dwellings as Ehrenreich later moves into a motel room with no screens on windows and no bolts on doors.

Here, only the stiffness of the air with the window shut reminds me that I’m really indoors; otherwise I’m pretty much open to anyone’s view or to anything that might drift in from the highway, and I wouldn't want to depend on my hosts for help. … Then I decide it’s smarter to keep all sense on ready alert. I sleep and wake up, sleep and wake again, listen to the cars coming and going, watch the silhouettes move past my window. (153)

The lack of privacy evolves into lurking danger. As a single woman without money, Ehrenreich risks being the victim of voyeurism or violence in exchange for a temporary shelter. She is forced to give up sleep to guard herself, “watch[ing] the silhouettes move past [her] window,” being cautious to both real and imaginary threats. In essence, working minimum wage jobs and the consequent lack of money is costing Ehrenreich her safety and sanity. 

Throughout the book, Ehrenreich rages against the dehumanization of minimum wage workers, highlighting the inhumane treatments, health crises and lack of privacy they face to prove her point. She argues that as the chariot of capitalism advances, the people pushing the wheels are forgotten: maltreated by society and denied the chance of moving upward, minimum wage workers are confined to their repetitive and arduous labor. They are becoming less than human.