My suburban book group met last night to discuss the book -- now a decade old -- Nickel and Dimed. I'd read it for a church women's group discussion at "Former Church" about 8 years ago. Several of the women last night expressed that the book was "eye-opening" for them.
I posited that the book is now outdated and obsolete. Our world looks much different that it did 10-12 years ago when this book was being researched and written. As hard as it was for the author to live the life of a person trying to subsist on a minimum wage in the 1990s, it is doubly hard today with the sagging dollar and increased prices for goods, services, and transportation.
We all know that homelessness is on the rise as the banking/lending industry collapses from the weight of it's bad debt. Newspaper stories are starting to crop up about how the restaurant industry is faltering in suburban America as people eat at home to economize and walking and biking are no longer just "urban chic" to go green, but necessities of home economy.
The distribution of wealth and debt looks strikingly like it did back in the pre-New Deal era of the 1920s. Some economists and news commentators are starting to use the "d" word. (Economic--not emotional--depression.)
This morning I read that even our humanitarian health organizations are having difficulty dealing with the rising costs of everything including rice.
Hunger is on the rise.
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