Essay On Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel And Dimed

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 this book Ehrenreich changes the names of the people and places, so the “Hearthside” is not actually the name of her first low-wage job), working for two weeks from 2pm-10pm for a wage of $2.43/hour + tips. After the two weeks were up Ehrenreich learned a lot about the people she had been working with, most of them were living in such poor conditions and or were living from paycheck to paycheck with nothing left over. Examples: Gail: Shares a room with a male roommate; she would like to not live with him but the rent would be impossible alone, Andy the white cook lives in his boat that doesn’t run, and Joan is the hostess that lives in her van parked behind a shopping center. These living situations of some of the workers at the Hearthside is really common as we learn later in the book that no matter the area that you are living in low-wage jobs do not meet the requirements needed in order to live financially stable.

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

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.

Ehrenreich developed the objectives of this book in a very interesting way. Ironically she developed the idea for this project over a very elegant expensive lunch at a French country-style restaurant. Ehrenreich and her editor Lewis Laphan from Harpers had gone out to lunch to discuss future articles. Throughout lunch the topic of poverty came up. Questions like, “How does anyone live on the wages available to the unskilled?” (Ehrenreich, 2001 pg. 1) and how do unskilled workers survive on such low incomes, started to surface. She then thought “Someone ought to do the old-fashioned kind of journalism – you know, go out there and try

Before moving any further with potential weaknesses, the major and possibly only strength was Ehrenreich’s issue with rent, but this later hits a dead-end. Rent being a significant problem for a society that expects and claims that people are able to afford to live off of minimum wage should highlight a flaw in that assumption. Throughout this book, rent becomes a major issue for her but her continuous complaining with no action becomes ineffective. When placed with desperate measures, strategies are quickly summoned. If one has some family and/or friends, there will be an attempt to ask them to loan money. If the individual has formed relationships and associations with people who are also hanging on the poverty line, the idea of taking in a roommate or moving in with a roommate to split the rent will definitely be a consideration as well as considering any government assistance programs. Ehrenreich’s fictional character did not include any family nor friends and associations that she could split the rent with nor did she seek out any other ways to make ends meet. These subtleties can make it easier for readers to disregard the stress of paying ones rent, because Ehrenreich’s experience is simply not an accurate depiction; failing to demonstrate logical behavior of someone who is sincerely

Is America truly the land of endless opportunities? People from all over the world come to the US in high hopes of becoming rich with minimal efforts. Sadly, this is not the case. After reading Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich, I have a new outlook on individuals struggling to get by on low wage paying jobs in America. Barbara travels to Florida, Maine, and Minnesota to "investigate" life as low wage worker. She plays a different role in each of these three states to experience the true life of these workers. She works at four different low paying jobs as a waitress, housekeeper at a hotel, house cleaner and a Wal-Mart associate. In the course of three months she finds insight in life with minimum wage. Reading this novel has truly

A riveting tale about the world of low class workers, Ehrenreich puts into words what most are don’t acknowledge or are afraid to acknowledge. Through first-hand experience, Ehrenreich successfully navigates her way through the low wage work by working such common low wage jobs as waitressing, housecleaning, and sales. While along the way discovering that each job encompasses their own organizational structure, culture, and identity that she is focused to discover and conform with while being paid no more than $7.00 an hour and even at some points as little as $2.43 (plus tips). Ehrenreich persuasively forces us to realize that the American dream is slowly

Continuously, Ehrenreich concludes with disdain that living off of a minimum wage job without being homeless is difficult or impossible. At each of the states she travels to, she finds she must work two jobs in order to afford even the most basic rooms. She notes that her troubles are not unique. Persistently, she writes about her coworkers being homeless or in one instance, not even being able to afford proper food and instead eating only a bad of

Although many Americans are aware that our country suffers severely in the category of poverty, minimum wage is not factor that many turn to think as a fault. They claim to know about minimum wage; however, it is merely a blank claim because they have neither experienced the hardship under a cap of expenses nor does the issue affect them. In fact, this issue is detrimental to our country as we are slowly falling into unemployment and homelessness. In Barbara Ehrenreich’s book, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, she states that minimum wage had fallen back comparing to the living cost in the 1900s; however, this statement is still true today. Enrenreich is a reliable reporter who travels to three different cities with contrasting backgrounds. She tried to experience the life of a minimum wage worker in order to accurately report the inside scoop of a life that most Americans do not know to exist. As a supporter of her claim after realizing the way our country has been living, I too believe that minimum wage does not fulfill its purpose and should be raised, as it does not serve enough to cover even the essential expenses.

Ehrenreich, found out that Portland is another $5 an hour type of town, and that jobs are heavy labor and at risk for injuries (37). Afterwards, she worked for a hotel as a maid, where there was a lot of indifference like how the hotel charges $25 an hour to a client for their room clean but the worker is only getting $6.65 out of that pay (44). Interesting fact was that the hotel said “Cleaning fluids are less expensive than your time”, which shows that the hote value workers above cleaning products (45). Chapter 3, talked about her last destination, which was Minnesota, but originally wanted to go to Central Valley in California but changed her mind because people said the jobs and low-income housing are filled up by Latinos (69).Barbara Ehrenreich got a job at a retail store called “Wal-Mart,” where she talked about in detail about the interview and how she needed to pee in front of a health professional for a mandatory drug testing to get employed (72-73). Ehrenreich mentions how a housecleaner, who helping a man with cancer clean his sores and cook him food in exchange gave her $325 for her rent, which shows that there was a people that will help low-income workers (75).

One of the many rhetorical techniques Ehrenreich uses is syntactic repetition as a way of instilling emotions in a readers in order to make them feel sorry for the conditions low wage workers endure and then help in some capacity. In very first sentence of the article Ehrenreich lists; “At the beginning of June 1998 I leave behind everything that normally soothes the ego and sustain the body - home, career, companion, reputation, ATM card - for a plunge into the low-wage workforce” (Ehrenreich 243). In this quote Ehrenreich just lists facts of what she leaves behind but it makes a reader

The freedoms she has taken for granted while living in the upper-middle class have disappeared; her new $7-an-hour paycheck severely limits where she can go and with whom she interacts. Ehrenreich’s entire world becomes about securing employment and earning enough to survive. Where she lives determines where she works; while there may be cheaper housing in the city, it is on the outskirts of town and far from any available work. As a whole, Ehrenreich’s world shrinks to a range of a few dozen miles:

In "Evaluation," the muckraking journalist Barbara Ehrenreich evaluates her experiences working undercover as a low-wage worker. Ehrenreich undertook her investigation of low-wage life to demonstrate that it was not possible to even 'get by' in America working minimum wage jobs, much less get ahead. She also learned an unexpected lesson: low wage workers themselves often bought into the myth of the American Dream. Many blamed themselves if they could not get ahead and simply resolved to work harder, rather than questioned a world in which they had so little, while the people they served had so much.

Many Americans believe that America has one of the most powerful economies that is involved in the global market and the best average living standards. Since the creation of the United States it has been known as the land of endless opportunities, regardless of social or economic classes. Under this philosophy, all citizens should have equal rights and given equal opportunity to progress in the workforce. However many Americans are living full lives and do not have financial obstacles to get over. Even so, millions of Americans are still faced with poor living conditions and struggle with providing for their families basic needs. Whether Americans believe poverty and inequality exist in America exists or not, the authors in three different articles:” Culture of Success” by Brink Lindsey, “A Great Time to Be Alive?” by Matt Yglesias, and “Born Poor and Smart” by Angela Locke, and “The War Against the Poor Instead of Programs to End Poverty”by Herbert J. Gans, shared ideas on how to help fix the problems of the impoverished community and address the cause of the problem. The four articles also explain different biases that the impoverish have to endure everyday.