NICKEL AND DIMED: ON (NOT) GETTING BY IN AMERICA (2008)

In this wealthy and expensive nation, how do Americans earning $6 to $7 an hour -- the wage touted by welfare-to-work programs -- make ends meet? Ehrenreich found out by walking in their shoes: She lived in Florida, Maine, and Minnesota for a month each, working the highest-paid ''unskilled'' jobs she could find -- like diner waitress, cleaning woman, and Wal-Mart ''associate.'' Overwhelmed by how demanding these jobs really are, and often juggling two at a time, Ehrenreich still could not afford local rents (''trailer trash,'' she reports ruefully, was ''a demographic category to aspire to'') -- and, ultimately, could not stay afloat. Her account is at once a clear-eyed portrait of how the bottom third lives, and a complacency-shaking expose of the dead-end-job economy.

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