Barbara Ehrenreich 's Nickel And Dimed Essay

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

In Barbara Ehrenreich's book "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by In America" we read about a middle aged journalist undertaking a social experiment of the greatest magnitude. The journalist is Ehrenreich herself and the experiment was to find out how a woman, recently removed from welfare, due to policy reform, would make it on a six or seven dollar an hour wage. The experiment itself started out as just a question in the middle of lunch with one of Ehrenreich's editors, it soon turned into a job assignment. Before starting the experiment, Ehrenreich laid out some ground rules for her to follow during the duration of the assignment. First she could never use

In Barbara Ehrenreich's bold and honest book she tackles the issue of poverty in America head on, by becoming a low wage worker herself. Ehrenreich delves into the often unheard of issues relating to poverty and low wage work, providing her readers with a new perspective on America's working poor and manages to give her audience a stark emotional, yet logical and factual, look into the working class' poverty epidemic. She uses her own anecdotal evidence and supports it with statistics and facts, appeals to ethos by challenging the ethics of corporate America and it costs, finally she hits an emotional chord with readers by reminding them of what low wage workers must endure so that we can live in our America.

“The Economic Policy Institute recently reviwed dozens of studies of what constitutes a “living wage” and came up with an average figure of $30,000 a year for a family of one adult and two children, which amounts to a wage of $14 an hour.” (213). According to Ehrenreich, about 60 percent of American workers earn less than $14 per hour. In all of places where Ehrenreich worked paid seven dollars or less per hour, which means those of people who work in those place cannot even afford to have some essentials services such as health insurance and telephone. Since they cannot even struggle to get out, politicians could takee an action; however, they didn't do any works. “The Democrats are not eager to find flaws in the period of “unprecedented prosperity” they take credit for; the Republicans have lost interest in the poor now that “welfare-as-we-know-it” has ended.” (217). And, they also had a catastrophic error. “In fact, very little is known about the fate of former welfare recipients because the 1996 welfare reform legislation bithely failed to incude any provision for monitoring their postwelfare economic condition.” (217). Congressmen need to read this book to realize the problem, and not satisfy themselves by ignoring failures because they have

Unlike her other coworkers who desperately needed a job to get by. One of those coworkers was the single mother of two children who was named Colleen. After Ehrenreich had finished her time in Maine she had told Colleen who she really was and what she was doing going undercover. Ehrenreich begins to ask Colleen questions about what she thinks about poverty and those who have more than those who really need it to which she responds, “I don’t mind, really, because I guess I’m a simple person, and I don’t want what they have. I mean it’s nothing to me. But what I would like is to be able to take a day off now and then… if I had to.. And still be able to buy groceries the next day.” (p119) This reveals the importance of a simple maid’s job, it puts food on the table and helps sustain more than one person while Ehrenreich who lived alone and only had to support herself was able to go back home and not have to worry about keeping her short lived maid position. After leaving her occupation it is time to move on and go through the job process again. She had applied to Wal-mart where she had discussed what had to be done when finding a new job Ehrenreich states, “ Each potential new job requires (1) the application, (2) the interview, and (3) the drug test- which is something to ponder with gasoline running at nearly two dollars a gallon, not to mention what you may have to pay for a babysitter.” (pg135) Going back to search for a new job is a difficult task that may not

“Something is wrong, very wrong, when a single person in good health, a person who in addition possesses a working car, can barely support herself by the sweat of her brow” (Ehrenreich, 2001, pg. 199). Barbara Ehrenreich wrote this in her captivating book Nickel and Dimed, where she embarked on a journey that revalued the truth behind life in low-wage America. Growing up I was led to believe that nothing worth having comes easy. As long as I worked hard and gave everything 100% I was guaranteed success, in essence hard work was the key to success. Ehrenreich revels the sad reality for many Americans where hard work, the type you never thought possible that leads to exhaustion, does not guarantee success. Ehrenreich had very unique objectives for writing this novel and she was able to reveal the impacts of social policy then and now.

In Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, Barbara Ehrenreich tells a powerful and gritty story of daily survival. Her tale transcends the gap that exists between rich and poor and relays a powerful accounting of the dark corners that lie somewhere beyond the popular portrayal of American prosperity. Throughout this book the reader will be intimately introduced to the world of the “working poor”, a place unfamiliar to the vast majority of affluent and middle-class Americans. What makes this world particularly real is the fact that we have all come across the hard-working hotel maid, store associate, or restaurant waitress but we hardly ever think of what their actual lives are like? We regularly dismiss these people as

Through interviews with welfare workers and recipients, Hays demonstrates the high costs welfare has had on the moral, economic, physical and mental well-being of poor women and their children due to what she considers to be the conflict between the two opposing aspects of reform: work values and family values. She believes that these conflicting values and the inherent weaknesses in the Act contribute to serious and ongoing problems for welfare recipients.

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.

During Ehrenreich’s time spent in Florida she talked about the housing options and how much it cost to live in Key West (a

Great discoveries always begin with great questions. Barbara Ehrenreich asked two great questions, “how does anyone live on the wages available to the unskilled” and “how were the roughly four million women about to be booted into the labor market by welfare reform, going to make it on $6 to $7 an hour” (2001, p. 12). To answer the questions, Ehrenreich embarked upon a journey to discover for herself, whether she could match income to expense as a low-wage worker. In effect, Ehrenreich tested the fundamental premise of The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, also known as welfare reform, in order to determine whether those individuals formerly on welfare and largely unskilled, could earn a living wage on the

Barbara would have never discovered for herself how difficult balancing a low pay job and having no one to look after your child could be. Not to mention, I think that this scenario really opened Barbara’s eyes talking to someone in depth about having a low-wage lifestyle and what that is like. Question 7: Throughout the three chapters of “Nickel and Dimed” by Barbara Ehrenreich the theme of poverty is very evident. In Chapter one, Barbara is working Hearthside and talks to her coworker Joan about her living situation.

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

Edin and Lein wanted to discover the surviving strategies of single mothers who are on welfare or work on a low-waged job. They argue “neither welfare nor low wage work gives single mothers enough income to meet their families’ expenses” (253). To find out the set of survival strategies of single mothers to make ends meet Edin and Lein interviewed 379 low income single mothers. They chose their interviewees from different cities, different aged group, and different ethnic background. Most mothers who are on welfare wanted to find a job and be out of the welfare but the primary problem that single mothers face was that “family economics”. With the minimum wage income it was impossible for the single mothers to bring the ends meet. Neither working nor being on welfare was enough to survive therefore mothers who are on welfare supported their budget by generating substantial supplementary income. Edin and Lein states that “welfare recipients generated extra income by working at side jobs, obtaining cash from network members, community groups and local charities”. They also get cash help from the family members, child’s fathers, and from a boyfriend. Because they were afraid to lose welfare benefits they did not tell anyone about the extra income they have. To survive they needed both the welfare benefits and the extra income. It was very difficult to establish a trust with the interviewees in the beginning because they were afraid if they talk about it they might lose the