Nickle and Dimed: Trading Places Essay

Most of Ehrenreich’s coworkers pay $500 or more for their rent. 5. When Ehrenreich goes for her job interviews, she gets disrespected most of the time because the employers she meets want their applicants to feel like they are lower class people. This happened to her in her interview for Merry Maids when her employer complains about finding decent help and telling her not to calculate her pay into hours. Ehrenreich never talks about an employer being nice, but in her low-wage work, she tries her best to prove herself, but she is still not treated with

In Barbara Ehrenreich's book "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by In America" we read about a middle aged journalist undertaking a social experiment of the greatest magnitude. The journalist is Ehrenreich herself and the experiment was to find out how a woman, recently removed from welfare, due to policy reform, would make it on a six or seven dollar an hour wage. The experiment itself started out as just a question in the middle of lunch with one of Ehrenreich's editors, it soon turned into a job assignment. Before starting the experiment, Ehrenreich laid out some ground rules for her to follow during the duration of the assignment. First she could never use

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 book, Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich mentions the problem of rents is the market. When the market fails to provide necessary goods, such as affordable housing, we expect the government to step in and help. We decide to believe this, because, in the case of health care, the government offers Medicare to the elderly, Medicare to the poor, and many state programs to poor children. But, with housing, radical increases of the rental market has been followed by a retreat of the public sector.

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

When Chris Crutcher decides to use imagery it is often very detailed. He takes the time to describe what these characters are seeing and feeling. Chris wants to make sure that the readers can see every situation, feel the weight of every decision, and feel the pain of the characters. Imagery is a very helpful tool to help Chris’ ideas really jump off the page and into your head. Some of these scenes of imagery include a little girl scrubbing off her skin using a brillo pad, and a character's father

In Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, Barbara Ehrenreich tells a powerful and gritty story of daily survival. Her tale transcends the gap that exists between rich and poor and relays a powerful accounting of the dark corners that lie somewhere beyond the popular portrayal of American prosperity. Throughout this book the reader will be intimately introduced to the world of the “working poor”, a place unfamiliar to the vast majority of affluent and middle-class Americans. What makes this world particularly real is the fact that we have all come across the hard-working hotel maid, store associate, or restaurant waitress but we hardly ever think of what their actual lives are like? We regularly dismiss these people as

The author uses imagery to interest the reader in her story that may seem mundane without the imagery. An example of this happening is when Jeannette is going to her new school in Welch it was her first day and the teacher picks on her because she did not have to give the school her records to her not having them as that is happening a tall girl stabs her out of nowhere“I felt something sharp and painful between my shoulder blades and turned around. The tall black girl with the almond eyes was sitting at the desk behind me.

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

After reading the introduction to Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich, I immediately felt that that she had advantages over other people that would be working similar jobs since she is an educated native English speaker. No matter what jobs Barbara Ehrenreich will be attempting to work, this will immediately put her ahead of anyone who doesn’t speak fluent English or is an immigrant in the United States. Barbara Ehrenreich admits to this at the end of the introduction chapter by saying, “Just bear in mind, When I stumble, that is in fact the best case scenario: a person with every advantage that ethnicity and education, health and motivation can confer attempting, in a time of exuberant prosperity, to survive in the economy’s lower depths”. Barbara Ehrenreich has everything going her way when it comes to working a job. She is white, educated, and has emergency funds to fall back on if she fails in anyway. She also has the advantage of being able to focus on working while others may

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.

In the end of the story Beth is courageous and not only stands up for herself. Which allows her to get what she wants from the store after she returns to the store for compensation. An example from the story “I’d been publicly humiliated. Falsely accused. I have my rights. I rammed my Mom’s car around and headed back to Mitchell Gail’s . I am a teenager, hear me roar.”. The example sentences supports the topic of this paragraph by showing how Beth was willing to stand up for her rights and go back to the store and complaining. She wants the people at the store specifically the manager of what occurred in the establishment rather than running away from her problems. Another example from the story is the conversation “”I’m afraid it’s going have to wait dear, you see…” ” No, Ma’am. You see. I was falsely arrested in this store by Madge P. Groton, Security Witch, and exactly two seconds I’m going to call a very large lawyer.””. The converstaion in the story shows that Beth instead of waiting as told to her pushed her problem and going as far as try to use intimidation herself to get what she wants from the store. Showing that she is not the cowardly person she was during the beginning and early middle of the story. The examples and explanation show that by the end of the story Beth who was a coward at the beginning was actually willing to stand up for

In the short story “Shiloh” Bobbie Ann Mason creates a very believable and vivid setting. The world that Leroy and Norma Jean live in is full of small details and analyses that create a deep and complex scene. She does this using a technique called “shopping mall realism”. It uses things like name brand products, time-period-specific objects, and in the case of “Shiloh”, songs whose lyrics tell a deeper story in context. This technique does a great job at making a story’s world seem alive and realistic, but it serves a larger purpose in the grand scheme of the narrative. It subtly reveals the characters’ inner thoughts, feelings, and attributes. It also serves as a plot device, offering foreshadowing and clarity to some of the more obscure

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.