Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

In the very first vignette Esperanza discusses how her family moved around a lot and even though the house on Mango Street was not the house of their dreams, it was a great achievement to own it. Although Esperanza knew they were not moving anytime soon, she recognized one advantage; her family was free of landlord management. In my community home ownership is a constant battle and for many simply a dream. I learn the value of home ownership in a similar sequence as Esperanza. My little sister and I were moved to and from apartment to family member’s houses until our first small home. A home with no back yard and only four stairs and side walk out front. None the

People are still living on $2 a day here in the United States. As one of the wealthiest countries in the world, how is it possible for people to live with this little amount of money? I know that I cannot. In $2.00 a Day, Jennifer Hernandez, a single mother with two kids, is a person who lives on $2 a day as she tries to survive and support herself and her kids in the collapsing economy. The minimum wage job for cleaning houses reinforces the cycle of poverty that Jennifer and her kids live in. This cycle of poverty reveals that there needs to be major changes to the economical infrastructure of the United States since the poor cannot get themselves out of poverty even though they actively look for work or have a job.

According to Ehrenreich, rent was the “deal breaker”. In Key West, she earned $1,039 in one month and spent $517 on food, gas, toiletries, laundry, and other utilities. If she had remained in her $500 efficiency, she would've been able to to pay her rent. From the rising stock prices and executive salaries, the poor low-wage workers don't stand a chance against the wealthy when it comes to buying houses on the open market. The wealthy can buy their trailer parks or apartment buildings, and replace them with condos, golf course, or

In Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich, the author portrays herself as a minimum-wage worker in part of America’s “working poor”. Before writing this book, Ehrenreich was ensconced as part of the middle-upper class. As a journalist, Ehrenreich worked multiple minimum-wage jobs at The Maids, Woodcrest Residential Facility, Walmart, Hearthside and Jerry’s. All of which she had no prior experience performing except for waitressing. By working these minimum-wage jobs, Ehrenreich lives the life of the lower class and interviews others on how they undertake their daily lives. The American Dream is defined as “the ideal that every US citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative”. Her experiences at the bottom 10% of the working class shows various examples of why the American Dream can no longer be attained today.

Macklemore’s latest single, “Kevin” voices the struggle lower class Americans go through with overusing prescription medication. Drug use and abuse has become a widespread issue within the United States. One of its most troubling aspects being the abuse of pharmaceutical and prescription drugs, painkillers raising the most concern. Drugs such as Oxycontin, Ambien, and Xanax are being prescribed by doctors and given to the public and then being misused, causing more harm than good. ADD SOURCE THAT EXPLAINS THE MANIFESTATION OF THIS. Barbara Ehrenreich, an American author and sociologist explores this very problem in her book, Nickel and Dimed. When talking about a worker’s use of medication, Ehrenreich claims that, “Unfortunately, the commercial tells us, we workers can exert the same kind of authority over our painkillers that our bosses exert over us. If Tylenol doesn’t want to work for more than four hours, you just fire its ass and switch to Aleve”(25). In other words, Ehrenreich is stating how the media is pushing drugs onto the working class and through the use of personification she illustrates how workers identify themselves with the medications they are taking. Employees will opt for the most efficient medication in order to be efficient

Through the struggles of stabilizing two jobs at once while searching for a temporary home, Ehrenreich displayed the frustration of sticking to her three guidelines in her experiment: she cannot go hungry, be homeless, or ignore the skills she learned through her education and past work experiences. She struggled to find jobs that provided more than minimum-wage incomes in

“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.

Barbara Ehrenreich would make a bad representative of the working poor because she lacks three major things that a woman of that class would actually possess. Ehrenreich doesn't meet the true qualifications of a working class woman: she lacks the background, she lacks respect of the money she earns, and she lacks certain personal or social qualities that ordinarily are possessed by the working poor.

This book was originally published in 2001. The book takes place in three locations. First, she started her low salary job in Florida. In this state, she worked as a food server. After she finishes experimenting and quitting her job at Hearthside restaurant, then she decided to move on to another minimum wage job in the state of Maine as a scrubber. Scrubbing is a hard job, and it also requires physical attention while someone’s working this job. Finally, she planned to complete her journey in the state of Minnesota. In this state, she was a Walmart worker. This book attracts many readers because the story of this book is based on her experience of working as a minimum wage employee.

During Ehrenreich’s experiment she relocated to a city, would find a low-wage job and cheap housing, while attempting to match income to expenses for one month. Ehrenreich chose cities based on employment opportunities and the availability of affordable apartments. She established essential ground rules for the

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

The housing crisis in New York City disguises itself well, hiding in the back of commercial zones or illegal tenements. Jacob Riis, a reformer at the end of the last century, spoke through photographs of the City’s poorest neighborhoods to impress the issue upon the world. His book, How the Other Half Lives, was a cry to the public for affordable housing and livable conditions for the city’s poor. Ironically, as an October 1996 New York Times article points out, 100 years under the bridge has not created even a marginal move of progress. Contrary to the popular belief that hard work and fair play yield access to the “American Dream,?the Times article depicts the conditions of the working poor, the “all but homeless?class that exists day by day.

Barbara Ehrenreich is a best-selling author, who wrote the descriptive narrative essay titled, “Serving in Florida”. In this writing, Ehrenreich tells the readers about her experiment into seeing if it was truly possible to live off of minimum wage, in a low-wage community located in Florida. Ehrenreich initially published this writing in her novel called Nickled and Dimed, but since then, it has also been published in other books for students in school. In “Serving in Florida”, Ehrenreich finds a place to live for about $500 per month. While living there, she had a waitressing job, paying 2.13 per hour plus tips. Throughout the writing, Ehrenreich described the obstacles that made it almost impossible to live off of only minimum wage.

In Chapter 3 she starts over again in Minnesota. She finds herself lucky here because she gets to stay at a friends while there out of town, saving her the trouble of finding housing right away. Although, after her friends return, here she ends up having the most trouble finding a place to live. She lives in a hotel throughout her experience in Minnesota. This really messes up her money situation.

Recognizing her existing needs, Sheri contemplates her status at the funeral home over the years and discovers she wants to move forward onto new opportunities for employment. Identifying alternatives to fulfill existing needs, Sheri converses with her friends regarding opportunities in the field of journalism, something she has a passion for. Her friend brings up an opportunity to travel and teach journalism. Evaluating identified alternatives to meet needs, Sherri considers what she wants to spend her time doing after her nine long years working in the funeral home and questions whether or not she wants to travel so far to work, especially with her mother’s illness progressing. Implementing alternatives, Sheri takes the steps to prepare and travel to Africa in order to pursue a new employment opportunity and teach journalism.