Nickel And Dimed: Book Report

In Nickled and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, I am still a little puzzled as to what the author’s purpose was with her experiment to briefly “live like the working poor in America.” She states she was concerned about the Welfare to Work program enacted 3 years prior and her “objective” experiment will allow her to make a conclusion on the effectiveness of the program. It appeared to me that she went into the experiment with a bias that the program will not work and it is an unreasonable, unrealistic, and unfair program. This is shown by her immediate statement, “The humanitarian rationale for welfare reform-as opposed to the more punitive and stingy impulses that may have motivated it …”. She then continues by using just the statistics

In the book Nickel and Dimed written by Barbara Ehrenreich, is about a journalist who was assigned to write an article about the minimum wage life. She believed that in order to do this task she needs to actually experience it in her own point of view. She decided to do an experiment as to live a life with a minimum wage. I believe that the message that she was sending is that it is very difficult to survive in such a minimum wage. No one should be in that state where you have to worry about eating the next day or being able to pay the upcoming bills, not having a permanent shelter. Throughout the book she noted down the peoples situation about how they have to share the place in order for them to be able to pay the rent. To always having

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.

Before she started writing this book, she hadn 't done much reporting at all, especially undercover reporting. The most commonly talked about issue in this book, is the Wal-Mart chapter. Ehrenreich was the first person to write about what goes on in Wal-Mart when you are an employee. To me, the most influential part of the book is the first chapter titled, Serving in Florida, In this chapter, Barbara meets new people and finds out what it is like to work at a low wage job. The life of an average minimum wage worker is not glorious, the struggle to live on the wages they receive is evident. They often cant afford to live on just one salary, many people have to obtain multiple jobs in order to pay for rent, utilities, and food. This being said, is it humanly possible to survive while making minimum wage? In 1998 in Florida, the minimum wage was $5.15, and the average rent was $619 a month. Due to low minimum wages, it is unlikely for someone living on one income to provide for themselves while living in a safe

The novel Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich exploits the struggle of getting by with a minimum waged job in America. Throughout the novel Barbara Ehrenreich’s main argument is how the difficulty of living life paycheck-to-paycheck is unreasonable because of the poor conditions the employees must work in. The difficulty with a minimum wage job entails a high cost of living, poor working conditions, and work related injuries. Each of these obstacles makes the job harder.

Since Barbara Ehrenreich makes this extremely clear in the introduction, I don’t believe her socioeconomic standing affects her argument in anyway. Barbara is simply trying to see if she can maintain living off of the minimum wage. I’m sure as we read more into the book, her argument will become more translucent and I’ll see how her socioeconomic standing really does effect the argument. I find her experiment fascinating and I’m extremely curious to find out what it’s like for an individual to transition from wealthy to poor overnight. I’m sure this experience is going to be an eye opener for Barbara Ehrenreich and also myself as the reader. I predict that she will actually struggle to maintain these low income jobs and find that living off minimum wage is extremely difficult and at times

Barbara Ehrenreich used her book Nickel and Dimed to illustrate her job assignment to live in the shoes of and, write about her experiences as a minimum wage worker in America. Ehrenreich goes to live in Key West, Maine, and Minnesota and works low wage jobs, sometimes more than one at a time. The point Ehrenreich is trying to make is that it is almost impossible to live a decent life in America with one, let alone two jobs paying very low wages. It is tough to be a low wage worker in America.

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, Is about a woman, a journalist who goes undercover to witness the Welfare Program the government provides for the poor and people in need. Ehrenreich is white and middle class. She claims that her experience would have been radically different had she been a person of color or a single parent. Ehrenreich had not much to worry about other than finding a job and a somewhat comfortable living space. If she had not been white , her experience would have been drastically different in my opinion. With little money, during this time period things were still not too expensive but not too affordable for some people.

Can someone really live and prosper in American receiving minimal income? Can someone create a good lifestyle for themselves on just six to seven dollars an hour? In Nickel and Dimed Barbara Ehrenreich goes undercover to find out if it is indeed possible. Giving herself only $1,000 she leaves the lifestyle that she has come accustomed too and goes to join all the people living the low class way of life.

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

McDonalds, Wal-Mart, and cleaning services: all of these have one thing in common-they are all minimum wage jobs. Their pay is low and work load high, and because of this living as a low wageworker is never easy. One must handle many hardships in order to make a few meager dollars, with which most cannot sufficiently live. 'The 'living wage' in the United States is between $9-10.18; sounds great to a college student, but in the real world this kind of money just isn't going to cut it,' (Ramisch). Minimum wage standards for American workers rest at $5.15 per hour, and in such slighted fields, very few make much more than that, perhaps $6-7, but even that is a rarity. The material life of a low-income employee includes bare necessities

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

In the essay by Barbara Ehrenreich, titled Nickel and Dimed written in 2001. This article talks about how Barbara struggled through her low-income life at the time in Florida. Due to high rent and low wage, her experience shows us that the most middle-class Americans have a huge financial problem. Now, she wants to prove why economic crisis still exist in some parts of America.

less than they need to live on" ( 270.) A good percent of high school graduates move right on to college. They graduate college and then they usually move on to make a good amount of money to live a satisfying life. However, college is not made for everyone, and what would our world be with only professionals? I agree with Ehrenreich that the minimum wage is too low because, while people with open opportunities earn a better future for their families, many like my own, are fighting to get through on a daily basis due to our economy.

The typical minimum wage employee working year round would make an annual average income of $15,000. Now some people may seem that decent or low but when adding daily living expenses its barley enough to provide for a family too. Bearing in mind this individual is working 40 hours a week earning $7.25 an hour, they’d be making less than $265.00 a week after taxes. Earning $265/week, one brings home nearly $1060/month. Within one month take in to consideration of the general