Nickle and Dimed with Use of Sociological Theories
“No one ever said that you could work hard—harder even than you ever thought possible—and still find yourself sinking even deeper into poverty and debt.” This is a quote by Barbara Ehrenreich who wrote “Nickel and Dimed,” she is a journalist with a PHD in biology and writes about her own story as she chooses to change her entire lifestyle, face the hardships of being a part of the working poor class just to see if she can survive. Throughout the book she illustrated the different jobs she endured and the struggles that came along with the jobs. Her story highlights the social inequality she experienced based on her status, working poor class, routine lifestyle, her experience living on the edge and the stagnant pay she received. There was a lot of social inequality in her journey that many Americans seem to overlook on the poor working class.
Ehrenreich worked at a restaurant as a housekeeper/ server and experienced what it was like working paycheck to paycheck. She constantly struggled on making her rent payments on time and finding cheap motels or apartments that she could pay for monthly. She found it very difficult to keep extra money for food or emergencies. Under these circumstances many sociologist would classify her as the working poor which is defined as, “poor to the extent that their economic status is extremely precarious. They literally live from paycheck to paycheck… Their wages are usually low, if they do work regularly, they have difficulty making financial ends meet”(Marger,152). One of the times Ehrenreich experienced this struggle was when she was living in Minneapolis and was looking for a good place to live in and she realized that the vacancy rent was less than 1 percent but she could not afford it unless it was one tenth of that. It became really difficult for her to balance her wages with her living expenses. Ehreireich illustrated, “you don’t need a degree in economics to see that wages are too low and rents too high” (Ehreireich,199).
Ehrenreich worked at a restaurant as a housekeeper/ server and experienced what it was like working paycheck to paycheck. She constantly struggled on making her rent payments on time and finding cheap motels or apartments that she could pay for monthly. She found it very difficult to keep extra money for food or emergencies. Under these circumstances many sociologist would classify her as the working poor which is defined as, “poor to the extent that their economic status is extremely precarious. They literally live from paycheck to paycheck… Their wages are usually low, if they do work regularly, they have difficulty making financial ends meet”(Marger,152). One of the times Ehrenreich experienced this struggle was when she was living in Minneapolis and was looking for a good place to live in and she realized that the vacancy rent was less than 1 percent but she could not afford it unless it was one tenth of that. It became really difficult for her to balance her wages with her living expenses. Ehreireich illustrated, “you don’t need a degree in economics to see that wages are too low and rents too high” (Ehreireich,199).