It sucks to be poor at any age, but Nomadland puts a very fine point on how much it sucks to be poor and elderly. So poor, in fact, that stationary housing is not even a consideration. The book centers around older Americans (not all past retirement age, but close) who have began living in RVs, trailers, vans, and cars in order to reduce their cost of living. None of the people we meet have enough savings to retire, and most don't have enough to buy a $4,000 vehicle without taking out a loan. Most travel around following whatever jobs are available to people their age: Amazon warehouse picker, sugar beet harvester, and national park campground attendant are the most common. Those jobs in particular seem to have developed a recruitment strategy (and a compensation scheme to match) around older folks who pretty much need whatever job is offered to them.
Bruder is an exceptionally empathetic tour guide to the RV parks (and stealth campgrounds) of primarily the Southwest, and she has a gift for getting female workampers (as they're called by Amazon, at least) to open up to her about the winding paths that their lives have taken. There's a lot of optimism present in their stories, but much of that struck me as delusion that's necessary for them to get through the brutal options that each day presents them with: drive 45 minutes each way to work so you can shower in a dumpy RV park, or crash in the Walmart parking lot to save gas? Eat, or fill the gas tank? Nomadland echoes the best of Steinbeck and Eirenreich. I'm privileged and lucky to have stable, well-paying employment, and I've never been so motivated as I am now to pay down my mortgage quickly and put every penny I can save into my 401(k). I hope that ends up being enough to avoid being a story like those told in this book.
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