In 1998, journalist and social critic Barbara Ehrenreich spent a month at a time masquerading as a minimally funded, undereducated new arrival in three towns—Key West, Minneapolis, and Portland, Maine—to see if she could find housing, obtain a low-wage job, and make ends meet for a full cycle of rent and bill-paying. Her observations and reflections have been compiled as Nickel And Dimed, a short, sharp book about the hassles of trying to live where the jobs are while maintaining a satisfying daily existence. Ehrenreich waited tables, cleaned houses, and donned the vest of a Wal-Mart stocker, and in each case, by the end of her month undercover, discovered that she'd had to take on a second job, and that she had very little time or money to enjoy the pleasures of a glass of wine or an evening on the town. The author admits that her stint of slumming may spark a reasonable accusation of unintentionally condescending liberal guilt. But Nickel And Dimed is packed with statistics and anecdotes to support its contradiction of the general perception that those living in poverty are victims of their own lack of initiative, and that an abundance of jobs means that the economy has been uniformly sound. Ehrenreich attacks not just the inadequacy of the minimum wage, but also the paucity of affordable housing and the limitations of government-aid agencies that only open their doors during the hours when most of their clients are working. Beyond the number-crunching, Nickel And Dimed hums with Ehrenreich's wit and insight. She notes how she came to join her coworkers in clandestine rebellions against management (giving extra sour cream to customers, going to the bathroom without clocking out) and in the fleeting freedom of the smoke break. ("In the American workplace," she writes, "the only thing people have to call their own is the tumors they are nourishing and the spare moments they devote to feeding them.") Most of all, Ehrenreich recounts how middle managers and obnoxious customers regarded her with scarcely concealed disgust, and she argues for a restoration of dignity to the service class. It's an inspiring rallying cry, made all the more powerful by its compact, entertaining package.