What Are The Teachings Of Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel And Dimed

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).

If most of her jobs netted around $7 an hour she figured that $500 of her profits could go to rent while $400 to $500 would have been left for food and gas.(12) Her bill for housing would have stayed the same, yet her food bill probably would have doubled. Still, this seemingly minor change would have put Ehrenreich in the red since she was making minimum wage which was only $5.15 an hour.(28) After some deliberation Ehrenreich could state that this wage had “no signs of being financially viable” even for a single women.(25) It's not just the cost of food and gas, or the cost of housing and clothing, it's mixing all these points together and trying to support them with a pay that could never sustain a person in any economy. Ehrenreich could potentially have received welfare and other forms of government aid but in some cases that simply is not enough. Even if she bought the cheapest food and housing Ehrenreich was still only scraping by without an additional person. Given these points, Ehrenreich's economic circumstances would have undoubtedly been grim and she would have gone into complete bankruptcy within several weeks to a few

As a social critic, Barbara Ehrenreich is able to provide opinions about societal issues. Regardless of her opinion, the audiences she reaches out to, take her stand point on what she writes about. In the excerpt, "Serving In Florida", from her research book, Ehrenreich vividly describes her experience as a server at a restaurant. This chapter is specifically for the middle and upper classes to show that minimum wage isn't enough for someone to be living off of. Ehrenreich reaches out to this specific audience because they aren't able to experience the harsh conditions they come across during their daily lives. Since the audience was oblivious to these conditions, Ehrenreich utilizes this to thoroughly describe her experiences as a server.

While working as a maid in Maine, the women working with Ehrenreich were encouraged to work through everything, including injury, because if they did not, they would not be receiving their vital paycheck, and every cent counts. Holly, who is visibly weak, twists her ankle on the job, and keeps on working, because she can not afford to miss a work day. Also in Maine, Ehrenreich contracted a rash from the cleaning equipment she was using, and she found it difficult to pay for the proper cream to treat it with the money she earned from working two jobs! One can only imagine how single mothers working two jobs pay for their children's needs, when Ehrenreich found it hard to support herself, and had to dip into her own savings to do something as simple as get the proper medicine for her body. However, this makes you question how authentic an experiment like hers can be. Ehrenreich mentions many times that her experience is just one out of millions, and there are different factors that play in, like children and race, but that does not change the fact that it is not real life for

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

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.

The second trait that I find Ehrenreich lacks is a certain respect of money that one of the working class would possess. One of the first examples I saw of this was when she bought her uniform pants in Florida for Jerry's. "Then there is the $30 I had to spend on the regulation tan slacks worn by Jerry's servers--a setback it could take weeks to absorb" (E 39). This foolish decision on buying pants at $30 is not something a working poor woman would do. Alyssa at Wal-Mart proves this: "That afternoon, Alyssa... had come by ladies' to inquire about a polo shirt that had been clearanced at $7. Was there any chance it might fall still further?" (E 159). I also see that she is rather careless with her money when she explains her situation in

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

Ehrenreich use of descriptions allows people of upper and middle class able to understand that earning a minimum wage is not living wage to survive in life leaving them without having any doubt that every person in the U.S should have equal opportunity when it comes to job wages. Ehrenreich put away her old life to test an experiment showing the personal struggles that she went through while trying to live on a minimum wage salary. She uses descriptions and examples of all the bad experiences that she encountered as having two jobs in order to live a stable life. This is shown in her words “For six to eight hours in a row, you never sit except to pee” (Ehrenreich 1). She describes how she worked six to eight hours without stopping for break

Ehrenreich goes into this experience knowing that she is above everyone and knowing she has money in her back pocket for any scenario where she is in need. Not even realizing that she was talking down on the working class, Ehrenreich refers to the working poor people's lives as ¨this parallel universe¨. As Ehrenreich gets into her first job working for minimum wage, she says ¨At least Gail puts to rest any fears I had of appearing overqualified.¨ Ruling out things was something that Ehrenreich did from the beginning. Choosing to rule out homelessness, she would never be without a car, and no shelters or sleeping in cars for her. Attitude played a big role in how she began her experience right from the start. The people who are actually living in poverty do not have any options to fall back on. Ehrenreich’s attitude is not of one who actually goes through the daily struggles to get by in this world. Being above everyone was something she made clear to all readers right in the beginning. On the other hand, Turkel’s attitude is very uplifting and appreciative of the working poor and how they have so much pride and passion in the work they do. While interviewing the working class, Turkel gets invited to eat dinner at some man's house, and without even realizing it, Turkel is leaving the dinner on short notice not fully appreciating that this stranger invited him into his home and used money he probably did not have to buy him Italian. Turkel says ¨I found myself neglecting the amenities and graces that offer mutual pleasure and host.¨ Realizing these people take huge pride in what they are doing, and love doing what they do, Turkel started to see how working like they do is actually

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

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

The basic cost of living; housing, food, and transportation, can’t even be properly attended with low wage jobs, without sacrificing one for another. Ehrenreich proceeds to describe not only her poor living situation, but also her co-workers, based off of information that she was able to gather while working with them. She states, “housing, in almost every case, is the principle source of disruption in their lives”(139) In her co-workers case’s that she presents, a unburdensome stable place to live is a luxury that they don’t have, nor can afford, “Tina, another server, and her husband are paying $60 a night for a room at the Days Inn. This is because they have no car and the Days Inn is in walking distance of the Hearthside”(139) With the minimum wage between “$6 to $10”, she has to make a little above $7.50 just to pay for their housing expense, not including food nor transportation. This is not a efficient way to live. She goes on to stat, “Joan, Who have fooled me with her numerous and taste for outfits…, lives in a van parked behind a shopping center”(139) This shows people can work minimum wage job and still be homeless. She also describes another one of her co-workers living conditions, “Claude… is desperate to get out of the two-room apartment he shares with his girlfriend and two other, related people.”(139) In all three of these living situation it is clear that if they are living in a home, it

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.

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