Nickel and Dimed-Drug Testing

Drug Testing in the Workplace


Throughout her experiences as a low-wage earner in the book Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich attempts to provide a social commentary on the many hardships faced as a result of being underemployed. Among these she includes problems she confronted in regards to the availability and costs of housing, food, and clothing, as well as the unavailability of jobs that pay enough to provide for all of her living expenses. She attempts to place herself in the position of someone who can hardly make ends meet in order to get a real feel for what it’s like to be broke. One problem she runs into during the course of her observation, and the subsequent overcoming of this obstacle, does not fit into an accurate application of her experiment. Before being hired, Ehrenreich must submit to a drug test. She knows that she will test positive, and decides to purchase a detoxification product that will clean out her system. This alternative to failing the d...