In the years 1998 to 2000‚ Barbara Ehrenreich writes about her experience working as an undercover writer and showing the difficulties that come with working a minimum wage job in her novel Nickeld and Dimed ; however‚ in today’s society we are given a much more difficult synopsis if one wants to live off of minimum wage. Compared to the piece by Ehrenreich‚ living in the United States in our current economic presence contains much higher costs of living‚ such as food‚ gasoline‚ and reasonable housing
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don’t necessarily realize when you start selling your time by the hour is that what you’re really selling is your life‚”as Barbara Ehrenreich once said. In Nickel and Dimed: On Getting By in America‚ Barbara Ehrenreich sets out to work on a project‚ as well as investigate on the impact of the 1996 welfare reform act on the working poor in the United States. Ehrenreich appeals to the readers with the true reality and struggles with money that society has taken a part of. Summing up‚ and showing them
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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 facing those Americans who are shockingly close to poverty and debt despite their daily hard work. Throughout the book‚ Ehrenreich uses
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Nickel and Dimed 1) According to Ehrenreich‚ people who work jobs that are subsidized almost entirely by tips should be either paid more to begin with or offered more services such as housing and food like European countries do. For example‚ the typical 10% tip is considered borderline excessive at table service restaurants because waiters and waitresses are already paid substantially. Also‚ it is common especially in Mediterranean countries for the 10-15% service charge to already be included in
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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
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narrative‚ Nickel and Dimed‚ Barbara Ehrenreich explores the world of the low-wage working class. An upper-middle class biology Ph.D. and journalist‚ Ehrenreich temporarily uproots her life in a two year social and economic experiment to join the laborers of America. Her purpose is to get firsthand knowledge and answer the question‚ “How does anyone live on the wages available to the unskilled?” (Ehrenreich 1) Beginning her journey in Key West‚ Florida‚ Ehrenreich finds employment as a waitress at
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Barbara Ehrenreich plunges into the world of minimum wage workers. In her immersion‚ Ehrenreich attempts various types of minimum wage jobs such as those that would be categorized as service work like a waitress or a house cleaner. Ehrenreich expresses not only the difficulty of these jobs‚ but the behavior in which people acted towards her. She explains that once she entered the world other service work she was seen as lower standard of human‚ if she was “seen” at all‚ since many times Ehrenreich would
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Patricia Goldsby ENC1102 June 19‚ 2009 Professor Jenson Poverty in America Authors Lars Eighner and Barbara Ehrenreich discuss in their struggles of everyday issues with poverty in America. Barbara Ehrenreich‚ author of “Nickel-and-Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America‚ raises awareness of the lives of low-wage‚ poverty stricken people being pushed into the labor market of welfare reform by highlighting the struggles they encounter daily. Whereas Lars Eighner‚ author of “On Dumpster Diving”
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NICKEL AND DIMED BOOK REPORT Barbara Ehrenreich is a journalist who wrote the book Nickel and Dimed. She goes undercover to see how it feels to work for $6 to $7 an hour. She leaves her regular life to explore the experiences of a minimum wage worker. Ehrenreich travels to Florida‚ Maine‚ and Minnesota‚ looking for jobs and places to live on a minimum wage salary. At one point in time‚ she had to work two jobs to makes ends meet. As she worked all these jobs‚ she discovered many problems in the
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Ehrenreich wrote the book “Nickel and Dimed” coming out of her experiences while being on assignment for Harper’s magazine‚ while trying to get the story of life as a low-wage income worker after welfare reform pass by president William Clinton. During her assignment she ran into many issues‚ like lack of basic necessities‚ poor working conditions‚ and having to work more then one job. Another set of pressing issues was the fact that in every city she moved to and tried to have a low-wage life in
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