How To Write A Chapter Summary 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 novel, Serving In Florida, introduces the ideas of studying the working poor in the United States. Barbara Ehrenreich, a scholar and author, explores this idea by working in a similar environment as the average working poor class citizen. For this particular project, she decides to work at a run-down diner called Jerry’s. From the excerpt of her book that was read, she is able to explain a lot about her experience with this simulation and her views on the working poor. Despite the respectable effort she made for the study, Ehrenreich can not give an accurate representation of the poor working class because she does not know their past or their home life and she will never fully understand what it is like to live as a working poor class employee because for her it is all a simulation.

Through several claims, Ehrenreich supports her argument of life being immensely difficult when trying to tranquilly live off of a minimum wage. One of the claims that Ehrenreich includes is that the wages are simply too low. (199). While on this journey Ehrenreich notices many things that most people who are getting paid more than the minimum seem to not acknowledge. In her evaluation she brings up how she has noticed, “In the first quarter of 2000, the poorest 10 percent of workers were earning only 91 percent of what they earned in the distant era of Watergate and disco music.” (203). This supports her claim because it is a perfect example of how the poorest have made the least progress compared to the wage levels of the 1970s, it makes the reader realize that in a change of about thirty years the wage has gone up so little yet the prices for everything else has risen, making it impossible for the lower class to stably keep up with their surrounding debts. Since Ehrenreich was getting paid minimum wage, when she had the opportunity to ask about it to her employer “Ted” in Maine, she did. She asked why he simply didn’t raise the wage up for his workers

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

Linda Tirado, author of Hand to Mouth Living in Bootstrap America, tells her story of what it’s like to be working poor in America, as well as what poverty is truly like on many levels. With a thought-provoking voice, Tirado discusses her journey from lower class, to sometimes middle class, to poor, and everything in between. Throughout the read, Tirado goes on to reveal why poor people make the decisions they do in a very powerful way.

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.

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: 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

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.

When reading Serving in Florida, it becomes easier to understand the obstacles many people face yearly with health insurance, transportation, and other expenses. Ehrenreich uses an appropriate method of research that allows her to sympathy towards these people that are struggling. If she were to interview workers, sit in as a customer, or even just work there for a day, she would not have even close to a full understanding of their lives and what it is like for the working poor. Ehrenreich demonstrates the best form of investigative journalism which is to physically immerse yourself in the subject being studied. Choosing to live as one of the working poor for a short time gives the author an accurate picture of their lives because she is able to be more sympathetic towards their experiences, she understands the privileges the

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.

She led an experiment as to whether or not it was possible to live on minimum wage in America. She tried to find housing, food, and at least one job in each location she moved to. There were many complications as to whether or not she would have survived. Many of the “working poor,” must go through a long process of applying at many companies and trying to find work. Ehrenreich found that one job doesn't pay enough to meet the needs of the working poor.