An Analysis Of Nickel And Dimed By Barbara Ehrenreich

The book Nickel and Dimed On (Not) Getting by in America, written by Barbara Ehrenreich is a book that relates the experience of how she survived living on poverty-level wages in America as a waitress, maid and a Wal-mart sales associate. Barbara left her comfortable surroundings as a journalist with a Ph.D in biology to work various "unskilled" and "under compensated" jobs in order to achieve, "the old-fashioned kind of journalism". In regards to leaving her comfortable lifestyles for a few months traveling through Florida to Maine and Minnesota, she discovered that people who are paid six to seven dollars an hour did not generate enough income for those who did not want to live

Ehrenreich’s housing situation also makes her stand out from the real poor working class. Ehrenreich (2002) states "As it turns out, the mere fact of having a unit to myself makes me an aristocrat..." (p. 70). Almost every other person she has met has to live with another person. A hefty security deposit is required to get an apartment which many people are unable to pay so they are forced to live with family, friends, or pay for a hotel room. Cohabiting is another system the working poor faces. Ehrenreich does not have to endure the hardship of living with another person.

The situation Ehrenreich is describing is the reality of millions of Americans; they work multiple minimum wage jobs, and are paid “so meagerly that workers can’t save enough to move on.” In addition, Ehrenreich recalls the actions of the U.S. government in regards to assisting these Americans. The article opens with the contribution of President Lyndon B. Johnson on the “War on Poverty”, then the “attack on welfare” in the 90s, concluding with The Great Recession. While writing Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, Ehrenreich abandoned her comfortable life to live the life of a low-income American; she worked multiple entry level jobs including Wal-Mart, a maid service, and as a nursing home aide. Through these actions, Ehrenreich establishes her ethos. Because she’s lived the lifestyle she’s describing, she has the authority to speak on the topic. Ehrenreich concludes with her proposal to help the

Barbara Ehrenreich's intent in the book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America exhibited how minimum wage isn't enough for Americans to get by on and that there's no hope for the lower class. Her main objective was achieved by living out the life of the "working poor". During the three cases studies she worked many jobs that are worked by many that are simply striving to live day to day. The jobs she had didn't generate sufficient income to avoid or help her rise out of poverty, in fact the six to seven dollar jobs made survival considerably difficult. Enitially, she believe the jobs didn't require any skill but while on her journey she started to realize they were stressful and drained a lot of energy. In addition to that she

Barbara Ehrenreich 's showed that she didn't have the mind set or worries of a working class person by reminding us as readers the fine line between the kind of performance she is doing and the kind her fellow coworkers do every day on the job. Time and again she lets us sink into her new world of a low-wage worker, only to pull us back with a reminder of the act. 1 She does this experiment to determine whether or not she could both live off the money earned and have enough money at the end of the month to pay the next month's rent. Working class people depend on the money they make on these jobs to survive and provide for their families. She could drop all these jobs she experimented with and go back to her real life without a worry in the

While conducting her experiment, Barbara Ehrenreich is also learning about the coworkers’ background and their living conditions. She provides the reader information on the way that specific person is living (with who and where) and the amount of money they’re spending on rent. She then begins to talk about how working a minimum wage can be difficult to everyone. By giving this connection, Ehrenreich is connecting to the public through an emotional standpoint. The audience might also be able to relate to one of Ehrenreich’s coworkers, which increases her credibility. Her point of wanting to prove to the public to increase the minimum wage is backed up through this connection because Ehrenreich is demonstrating to them that despite employee's background, rent is going to be an expense that everyone is going to have to encounter some time in their life. Ehrenreich also discusses about some sacrifices that coworkers had to make due to their lack of funds. She talks about how a coworker’s boyfriend lost his job because he missed so much time from work because he couldn’t afford the prescribed antibiotic he needed due to an injury. If employees doesn’t have the sufficient funds from their employers, they’re going to have to make a sufficient amount of sacrifices in other areas just so they’re able to have enough money to afford paying rent.

Barbara Ehrenreich is a political/social journalist and writer. She is a best-selling author with a dozen book credits to her name. Her works include Blood Rites, The Worst Years of Our Lives, and Fear of Falling. She also has written articles for Time, Harpers, The New Republic, The Nation, and The New York Time Magazine. Her Ph.D. in biology endows her with the experience and discipline to approach as a scientific experiment the study resulting in her newest book, Nickel and Dimed.

Ethos, pathos, and logos are all devices that Barbara Ehrenreich effectively uses throughout her novel Nickel and Dimed to prove that America needs to address the commonly overlooked issue of poverty within every community. It is important that she uses all three devices because they help support her argument by increasing her credibility, connecting to the readers’ emotions, and appealing to their sense of logic. The combination of these devices puts a sense of urgency on the problem Ehrenreich is addressing and therefore creates an effective argument.

As the author moved from locale to locale she identified a variety of recurring hardships faced by the working poor. The chief concern for many was housing. Finding and maintaining economical housing was the principal source of disruption in their lives. For many of the working poor it’s not uncommon to spend more than 50% of income on housing. These leaves a scarce amount of money left over for anything else and creates a situation where the person is always worried about losing their shelter. In a nutshell, it’s Ehrenreich’s conviction that wages are too low and rents are too high. She does speak with many individuals who simply cannot afford the high rental rates and are forced to live with family, friends, or in some

In ‘Nickel and Dimed” by Barbara Ehrenreich, the main claim made by the author was that the low-working class are, in general, forced into an inescapable cycle of poverty. The low paying jobs they have to take are barely enough to pay rent, buy food, and other necessities. This doesn’t even include those in less favorable conditions than those Ehrenreich mimicked in her experiment. In general, Ehrenreich was trying to prove that the “living wage” offered by entry level jobs is not, in fact, “livable”. The significant supporting evidence provided in the book included Ehrenreich’s first hand experiences of mimicking (to her best abilities) what low-wage workers live everyday, as well as a plethora of supporting facts and statistics. All of Ehrenreich’s evidence was heavily supported with reliable resources. Based on the facts she presented, I agree with her claim that the majority of low-wage workers get stuck in poverty as a result of the entry-level workforce system as a whole. The evidence regarding statistics was very valid and well cited, and her first-hand experiences, while with possible flaws, only worked to further support what she was claiming. Ehrenreich’s methodology of obtaining evidence was very direct, and proved to show a plausible experience that most of the low-class would have in a best-case scenario. By that I mean in some of the best circumstances (no children, no serious medical needs, ect.), it is reasonable to assume that Ehrenreich’s experiences are

In Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, the author Barbara Ehrenreich took on an experiment for better understanding of the working class. She left her comfortable life and took on lower paying jobs herself.

Throughout the book Ehrenreich’s co-workers all seem to struggle, such as the trouble with housing in Key West and healthcare in Maine. Having a place to live, eating properly, and healthcare seem to be the biggest cause of concern within the working class. Most of the jobs that she worked, the workers did not have healthcare packages or benefits. So it wasn’t uncommon for them to have trouble trying to manage their health and struggle to pay for medication, let alone a visit to the doctor. Without healthcare and a lack of proper diet (in Maine she had a ‘thirty minute’ lunch break but most of her co-workers barely ate anything close to a meal) it is not hard to see how the working class can easily be shot into poverty; seeing as most of the working class that she had encountered were just living above the poverty line. Reading about what she noticed and noted about her co-workers it isn’t hard to imagine how easy it would be to fall below the poverty

In Chapter three of “Nickel and Dimed” by Barbara Ehrenreich, one of the most significant scenarios I would say is when Barbara is talking with Caroline about her lifestyle. Caroline lives in a $825-a-month rental home with her husband and two children. They are considered middle-class because they make close to $40,000 a year, but scraping by to make ends meet. Caroline goes on to tell of her low-wage life; this includes a hotel room cleaning job in Florida, and now book keeping job in Minnesota. Also, Caroline tells Barbara of her struggles with balancing a job and children, and her own health when living in Florida.

Nowadays, everyone living on their own, hopes to have a good job that pays the bills and lets them live comfortably. In the writing “Serving in Florida”, Barbara Ehrenreich made a bold move, and she conducted an experiment where she tested if it was possible to make a living off of minimum wage. Ehrenreich found a place to live and got her waitressing job, paying 2.13 an hour plus tips. She was ultimately focusing on the lives of people who were forced to live off of minimum wage. Ehrenreich described all of this as an “experiment” to “test a mathematical proposition”. During the 20th century, economic progress took over the idea of poverty, while employees rights got taken away. This made Ehrenreich want to write

The main idea of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich demonstrates the complications and the way on how minimum wage workers survived during 1996 in Florida, Maine, and in Minnesota when the welfare reform had an impact on minimum wage. Her goal was to experience how to settle for rent, food, and bills while working in minimum salary. The idea of this project came in mind when she discussed with Lewis Lapham, the editor of Harper’s, about future articles in magazines and then asked “How does anyone live on the wages available to the unskilled? How, in particular, we wondered, were the roughly four million women about to be booted into the labor market by welfare reform going to