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Adam Shepard loves being poor! (Except that he’s not.)
Being poor sucks.
Unless you’re Adam Shepard, the author of Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream
Shepard’s book is a rebuttal to Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Nickel and Dimed” and “Bait and Switch,” two stories which tell the tales of the working poor in America. They fry burgers, scrub toilets and wait tables and get no money or respect for their toils. The punch line? The American Dream is a farce.
But Shepard, a fresh-faced kid straight out of college set out to prove her wrong. The native North Carolinian heads out to the wilds of Charleston, South Carolina, with a sleeping bag, the clothes on his back and $25 dollars to find the American Dream (and most likely, himself, because that’s how these stories normally conclude). He forbids himself from relying on his college education or previous contacts to make a go of it.
First of all, this is not a fair rebuttal to Ehrenreich’s “Nickel and Dimed.” (I haven’t read “Bait and Switch.”) Shepard is a healthy and young, widening the array of manual labor he can undertake and eliminating a laundry list of medical ailments. Shepard speaks fondly of the camaraderie he feels with his fellow dudes at the homeless shelter and romanticizes their rugged existence. He’s shocked that they swear and do “hard drugs.” News flash to Shepard - rich people swear and do drugs, too.
Second, Shepard is a male, which, without getting into the glass ceiling discussion, makes a huge difference, not only in the type of work that he receives, but the way he is treated. Ask any woman who has ever had her derriere pinched while waiting tables or watched a lesser-qualified male get a raise. Additionally, Shepard is young-that equals potential to an employer, rather than the perceived staleness of Ehrenreich’s middle-age woman.
Shepard fails to acknowledge that he’s in a different world. He writes about his experience in a homeless shelter whereas Ehrenreich takes on the more overlooked population-the working poor. Neither of them supports a family, but just like there are different kinds of rich, there are different kinds of poor. Shepard’s perspective seems ill-informed. He lived in this world, but saw it like a student would view a semester abroad in Europe - rugged, alternative, daring and exciting. Maybe he should try this below-the-poverty-line lifestyle for another thirty years to see if the cheery tone holds up.
Shepard’s note-taking methods are not disclosed. He fills up 300 pages (which could be cut down to 100) with dialogue and specifics, but how did he record all of it without his bedmates at the Crisis Mission shelter noticing?
My problem with both Shepard and Ehrenreich is their overly anthropological approach to their subjects. They write about the people in their respective worlds like specimens, primitive others, rather than what they are-people. Ehrenreich has a Ph.D. in biology, so this makes some sense, but Shepard just comes across as an ignorant jock who is trying to make us believe that he understands. (Full disclosure - I grew up with parents who were more than familiar with the service sector and I, too, have paid my dues to the minimum wage world of suckiness. Many members of my family still are.)
He misses the larger economic point that Ehrenreich nails: It’s not about being rich or poor, it’s about not being able to escape being poor. Economic mobility is harder than ever. It’s about pulling 80-hour weeks and having nothing to show for it but credit card debt and subprime mortgages. Politicians debate about whether or not the minimum wage was created as a living wage, but the point remains that people (and families) live off of it. Hell, some people don’t even get paid at all. Shepard completely overlooks the context of the world he lived in and that navigating through that world isn’t as easy as it was for middle-class, educated and healthy him. I’m sure he shoveled fertilizer with the best of ‘em, but the blinders were still on.
Yes, our system is flawed and our personal finance habits need help. And there is the whole discussion of people who choose to be poor and that the U.S. can’t be a socialist paradise and so on and so on. But take a moment and reflect on the fact that taking on a common American lifestyle has become a journalistic genre. Americans have lost so much touch with “the other half” that we’re sending media ambassadors out there to show what it’s really like on a safari with The Poors. Yes, these kinds of economic issues deserve national attention and in-depth research. But these stories should be vessels for telling the lesser-heard voices rather than for self-promotion.
P.S. - For a quick hit of Shepard’s ridiculousness, check out this YouTube video.
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(5) Comments
Hmmmmm…something tells me you didn’t read Scratch Beginnings at all. I did, and I certainly don’t share your perspective.
Well, you certainly raise some interesting points. Actually, no you don’t.
What is so fascinating about Shepard’s story is that he DID something, while the rest of us are blogging about it.
We whine and complain and whine and complain and whine and complain. But we don’t offer solutions.
Shepard does.
Read it from cover to cover. Shepard’s book, like all books, are of course up for interpretation and I respect your opinion, it just wasn’t my cup of tea. Then again, I wade through financial writing for a living. I appreciate the spirit of his book, but think he missed some basic points.
Thanks for the comments!
Shepherd is young, but then, every middle-aged person was young once, and would therefore have that particular advantage. However, I’m assuming Shepherd also had good health dental care as a child. Most importantly, he’s educated. I read a couple other interviews with him, and I can’t believe he actually denies that his education helped him! He really thinks that the fact that he has a college degree didn’t matter because he didn’t tell people about it.
I’m sure his alma mater would be happy to learn that a college degree is worth a line on a resume and nothing more. The fact is, his education has helped him become poised and articulate. I’m sure it improved his communication and leadership skills. It also helped him learn to think critically, a crucial job skill. All of those factors, I’m sure, helped him while he was looking for jobs.
Was there anything specific you didn’t like about the book, other than his general attitude?
Does Shepherd not think that the majority of people currently living in shelters across the country once had apartments, cars, and money in the bank? The reason why he “quit” says it all - a family member got sick. If he did not in fact come from a wealthy background, most likely full of the best health insurance money can buy, doesn’t he think that a family member getting sick would have spelled economic disaster for that person, and possibly their extended family as well? All that person would need is a single CAT scan and his much-vaunted $5,000 savings would have been gone.
At first, the only problem I had with Shepard’s book is the whole “slumming it” tone is takes (poor people swear!) but I still found the whole experiment interesting. It’s the attitude him (and his new acolytes) have taken with even the slightest criticism - so what is he’s white, healthy, young, and unencumbered by debt/family/medical problems? This proves anybody can do this, they just don’t want to! They’re too busy putting rims on their cars! Why not just admit the experiment is of course slanted, the way any actual journalist/investigator would, and move on?
Oh, I forgot. His personal experiences can of course be extended to everybody in America.
I was also disappointed by the overall level of writing in the book, but that’s what happens when a rich kid who skated through college on daddy’s money writes a book.
