provoking novel‚ Nickel and Dimed‚ Barbara Ehrenreich explores the life of low-wage workers in America’s society. While speaking with an editor one day‚ the question of poverty and how American’s survive off six and seven dollars an hour played in Ms. Ehrenreich’s mind. So as a journalist‚ Ehrenreich goes undercover working several minimum wage jobs and tries to survive off the earnings. Seeing and living the lives of these poverty-stricken workers‚ Ehrenreich learns that hard work doesn’t always
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the population that earns less than $25‚000 believes in god‚ while only 78% of the population with as household income over $75‚000 and over 50 years of age believes in heaven (TIME 24). Ehrenreich‚ however‚ refuses the advice from Caroline‚ a woman in Minnesota‚ telling her to "Always find a church" (Ehrenreich 132). Based on her refusal‚ her future complaints about the lack of help seem to only emphasize her political view when I plainly understand that help is readily available. I believe her
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that the author of “Nickel and Dimed”‚ Barbara Ehrenreich‚ had ethical intentions when making the decision to investigate “poverty” by emerging herself in the “low-wage lifestyle”. The ethical concern‚ however‚ is with her approach. I feel that the way in which it was conducted could be viewed as degrading to those who do not have an alternative to this way of living. True‚ hopeless poverty does not have those “reassuring limits” that Ehrenreich had the ability to utilize when she
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In Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed harsh living conditions can affect a person mentally‚ emotionally‚ and morally. Poverty is not a "in-between" lifestyle. The major reason why poverty is like this is because the government controls everything and puts limitations on the lower-class and does not provide a enough help economically. Also‚ if society continues to undermine the lower-class the world’s production will drop. Throughout Ehrenreich entire studies of living this lifestyle‚ she makes
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Mohammed Arif Kristi Moos English 104 27 September 2014 Living in America Barbara Ehrenreich is an author of article called “Nickel and Dimed”. Barbara Ehrenreich is a down-to-earth‚ skilled journalist with a Ph.D. in biology. Barbara is someone does not try to be what she is. She is the kind of woman that leaves everything aside and going to experience different life in America. . In the article Barbara tells about herself as a journalism going thru a low-wage job from her normal life‚ and
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Barbara Ehrenreich ’s "Struggle" to Live the Life of a Low Income Worker In the novel Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehnreich‚ there are many hurtles she must overcome to experience the life of a low income worker. She sets some ground rules for herself‚ such as always having a car‚ and starting out with a certain amount of money for her down payment on an apartment. Although the rules are doable‚ she admits that she broke all of the rules at least once. Even though Barbara didn ’t hold to her
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Nickel & Dimed In Nickel and Dimed Barbara Ehrenreich takes a break from her real life and lives as a low wage-worker takes a low wage job in order to understand and find out what wage workers really go through everyday not knowing what’s next for them‚ and how they live off of minimum wage. In everyday life low-income people do many things in order to survive on a daily basis. There are people who work multiple jobs‚ or live in a shelter‚ live in their cars‚ house/apartments housed by various
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It is my belief that the author‚ Barbara Ehrenreich does put forward an objective plan. Although she is a journalist‚ she acts as if her true profession is a scientist. She does this by having only one goal set‚ putting rules and boundaries in place for herself‚ and recording and analyzing the data she has collected. She decided to completely change her lifestyle and learn how many Americans live their lives. Ehrenreich tries her hardest to enter this experiment with neutral‚ unbiased ideologies
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Why Should We Care In her expose‚ Nickel and Dime‚ Barbara Ehrenreich shares her experience of what it is like for unskilled women to be forced to be put into the labor market after the welfare reform that was going on in 1998. Ehrenreich wanted to capture her experience by retelling her method of “uncover journalism” in a chronological order type of presentation of events that took place during her endeavor. Her methodologies and actions were some what not orthodox in practice. This was not to
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monthly rent or buy enough food to feed their family for the rest of the week. In Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America‚ the author Barbara Ehrenreich takes on an experiment in order to better understand the working class. She leaves her desk job as a highly acclaimed writer and decides to take on the lower paid jobs herself. In this book‚ Ehrenreich cleverly utilizes statistics and her own personal experiences as well as the experiences of others‚ in order to bring to light the harsh reality
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