Nickel and Dimed Essay example

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

Every establishment that she applies would rather hire her as a waitress because she is white and speaks English. When applying to Hearthside, Ehrenreich even downgrades herself in order to attain a job as a housekeeper. “I mutter about being woefully out of practice as a waitress, but he’s already on to the uniform” (Ehrenreich, 16). However, even though the author attempts to prove she would not make a good waitress, her employer is already stubborn and thinks that she is more worthy as a server as opposed to a housekeeper. So why did her boss make her a waitress when she clearly wanted to be a housekeeper? Her boss made her a waitress simply, because he used stereotypes to judge the author. Therefore, her boss only saw a white woman who was better equipped with serving skills even though Ehrenreich believed she had better housekeeping skills. Now, sadly if a fluent English speaking Hispanic applied to the same job, she would only be hired as a housekeeper. In fact, she would be rejected as a waitress for the same reason that the author couldn’t become a housekeeper; the of color her skin. In today’s society, when someone thinks of a hotel maid, they think of a Latin woman who isn’t fluent in English. It is this very stereotype that affects the type of job a low-wage job a person receives simply because of the color of their skin and not their personal abilities.

High turnover is something that goes hand in hand with low wage jobs, so companies are always looking for a workers replacement. Finally Ehrenreich is able to secure employment at a place she give the pseudonym, Hearthside. To help protect identies of companies and people she actually worked for and with, Ehrenreich decides to use fake names to achieve anonymity. Ehrenreich starts out at 2.43 an hour plus tips. One of the first things Ehrenreich notices is that the people around her are only working hard enough to get by. Because the managers will yell at anybody who is done with their work, and not doing something new, the workers seem to be happy with just working at a slow pace, doing just one job. Because the only reward for finishing early is being yelled at by a manager, that apparently spends his day doing nothing, there is no real bonus to go the extra mile. Due to this negative reinforcement, Ehrenreich notes that the restaurant is almost moving in counterproductive mode. With less being worked on, less is being accomplished, attributing to the overall sad appearance and low morale of the restaurant and its employees. The next problem Ehrenreich encounters is the constant berating handed out by her supervisor "Stu". Ehrenreich observes that due to this constant barrage of insults and degradations, workers are forced to feel like they are subhuman. Weekly the managers announce

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.

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

While conducting her experiment, Barbara Ehrenreich is also learning about the coworkers’ background and their living conditions. She provides the reader information on the way that specific person is living (with who and where) and the amount of money they’re spending on rent. She then begins to talk about how working a minimum wage can be difficult to everyone. By giving this connection, Ehrenreich is connecting to the public through an emotional standpoint. The audience might also be able to relate to one of Ehrenreich’s coworkers, which increases her credibility. Her point of wanting to prove to the public to increase the minimum wage is backed up through this connection because Ehrenreich is demonstrating to them that despite employee's background, rent is going to be an expense that everyone is going to have to encounter some time in their life. Ehrenreich also discusses about some sacrifices that coworkers had to make due to their lack of funds. She talks about how a coworker’s boyfriend lost his job because he missed so much time from work because he couldn’t afford the prescribed antibiotic he needed due to an injury. If employees doesn’t have the sufficient funds from their employers, they’re going to have to make a sufficient amount of sacrifices in other areas just so they’re able to have enough money to afford paying rent.

A journalist who has Ph.D in biology wanted to know how people could live with just seven dollars per hour. In Nickel and Dimed, the author, Barbara Ehrenreich, introduces how people live with low-wage jobs. She told that employers sometime see their employees as potential criminal, their employees' work environments do not suit for their works, and the employees's wages does not satisfy what they need to survive.

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

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

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

Nowadays, everyone living on their own, hopes to have a good job that pays the bills and lets them live comfortably. In the writing “Serving in Florida”, Barbara Ehrenreich made a bold move, and she conducted an experiment where she tested if it was possible to make a living off of minimum wage. Ehrenreich found a place to live and got her waitressing job, paying 2.13 an hour plus tips. She was ultimately focusing on the lives of people who were forced to live off of minimum wage. Ehrenreich described all of this as an “experiment” to “test a mathematical proposition”. During the 20th century, economic progress took over the idea of poverty, while employees rights got taken away. This made Ehrenreich want to write

After the week she spended with her coworkers, she had gained information on how each one of them lives, “Gail is sharing a room in a well-known downtown flophouse for $250 a week, Claude…two room apartment he shares with his girlfriend and two other and unknown person, Annette…lives with her mother, a postal clerk, Marianne, … , and her boyfriend are paying $170 a week for a one-person trailer, Billy, … , lives in a trailer he owns, paying only $400-a-month lot free, Andy, lives on his dry-docked boat, Tina, … , and her husband are paying $60 a night for a room in the Days Inn, Joan, … , lives in a van parked behind a shopping center at night and showers in Tina’s motel room.”(pg. 20-21). The survey that was conducted by the author through her personal experience demonstrated that her coworkers try to split rent in order to pay less and try to save money for the next payment for rent.

Ehrenreich applies for many different jobs and ends up choosing between Wal-Mart and Menards. She picks Wal-Mart and find herself working in the women 's department organizing and hanging up clothes. She realizes that she must became friendly with the dressing room attendants in order to make her job easier. Again her supervisors constantly get on her about wasting time. She uses her break times to talk to her fellow workers about a union but quits before really getting anything started.