Mccarthyism In Nickel And Dimed

Nicked and Dimed: A Bourgeois Woman’s Attempt to Enlightenment Barbara Ehrenreich, a political journalist, found her writing inspiration a couple of years after the birth of her first child. Filled with political opinions and an itch to write, she took to her first successful pamphlet Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers. This started a wave of inspiration and success, leading to her New York Times Bestseller, Nickel and Dimed. While originally Ehrenreich started with a Biology major, ocne getting into writing it became the only thing she wanted to do (Ehrenreich, para 3 and 4). While the concept of Nickel and Dimed is one you arguably can not train or prepare for, Ehrenreich’s experience as a skilled journalist provided
The experiences she had, the people she met, were ones found in the everyday life. Her humorous tales of working in the real world both inspire me and frighten me. While on one hand it shows kindness like when Ehrenreich explains her co worker Gail, “dips into her own tip money to buy biscuits and gravy for an out-of-work mechanic” (pg. 20). Seeing the kindness of Ehrenreich and her fellow workers during her experiment goes to show that despite living a hard life themselves, many are still full of compassion for others. Coming from a lower class family, I understand how easy it is to give when you have little to nothing yourself. My mother always taught me the importance of giving, no matter what. The more negative parts can be found in Ehrenreich’s brutal reality. “You lose your job, your car, or your babysitter. Or maybe you lose your home because you’ve been living with a mother or a sister who throws you out when her boyfriend comes back…” (pg. 52). While Ehrenreich herself lived a prodigal lifestyle, this experiment taught the valuable lesson of the hardships faced by minimum wage workers. Being stuck in that life means constant hardships faced. Like I mentioned in the beginning, the primary problem I saw came before the experiment itself. Her unwillingness to experience the true life of a minimum wage worker highlights the largest problem America currently faces. The higher classes see minimum wage workers
The English for example, on a quest for gold, came to the New World. Their quest for riches began a deleterious lifestyle of cannibalism and disease. Consumed with the search for riches, in the end, “only 38 survived the first nine months of life in Jamestown, with most succumbing to starvation and disease,” (Stromberg, para. 4). Due to the English men’s obsession with finding wealth, none of them planted crops. Similarly to the story, both the English and minimum wage workers put everything into their work, chasing gold that might not ever be found. Because of this dedication, many things like farming or families get pushed to the side. While the English had a more gruesome and unsanitary situation, the same concept applies now. Minimum wage workers put everything off just for the sake to chase their gold, which for most is just financial stability. In order to reach this success, many would move to America. Immigration to The United States has always been based on bettering one’s life and chances of wealth. However, immigrants coming to America are usually desperate for any kind of work, and end up forced to handle this minimum wage lifestyle. While many might be dismissive to the concept of helping immigrants by raising minimum raise, it is important to once again look back at our history. Everyone (besides the Native