Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America | March 29 2009 A riveting tale about the world of low class workers‚ Ehrenreich puts into words what most are don’t acknowledge or are afraid to acknowledge. Through first-hand experience‚ Ehrenreich successfully navigates her way through the low wage work by working such common low wage jobs as waitressing‚ housecleaning‚ and sales. While along the way discovering that each job encompasses their own organizational structure‚ culture‚ and
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end? Barbara Ehrenreich would like to know the answer to this question so she suggests to a famous editor that she could live in the life a minimum wage worker for a couple weeks. Low class workers may work several jobs for up to a full day with little pay and still not be able to make ends meet and support themself or their family. They work hard‚ but still struggle to find their place in society because they are not receiving enough money. In Nickel and Dimed‚ Barbara Ehrenreich makes it clear
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After reading about the travels Barbara Ehrenreich took in the book Nickel and Dimed as an attempt to “discover some hidden economies in the world of the low-wage worker” to Florida‚ Maine‚ and Minnesota‚ I have been able to deepen my understanding of the harsh reality people face while working in low income jobs. (Barbara Ehrenreich‚ Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America‚ p. 3) She undertook several different types of low wage jobs such as a waitress‚ hotel housekeep‚ nursing home cook
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isn’t always as easy as getting a job‚ making money and paying you bills. In her fascinating book on extended essays Nickel and Dimed‚ Barbara Ehrenreich poses as an unskilled worker to show the struggles encountered everyday by Americans attempting to live on minimum wage‚ "matching income to expenses as the truly poor attempting to do everyday." (6) Ehrenreich gave herself three rules she had to live by and they were: 1. She could not use her education or professional skills to land a job‚ 2. She
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and they hinder potential applicants while violating freedoms and having little perceptible and positive impact on work performance. In chapter three of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America‚ Ehrenreich comes to her realization how much real low wage workers are required to act (Ehrenreich‚ Barbara‚ & Christine 13). She is seen to be distressed by the difficulty of the personality test. She describes it as excruciatingly draining‚ yet‚ still looking cheerful and compliant simultaneously
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Lapham‚ other than the fact that he is the editor of Harper’s? Why was Barbara Ehrenreich so inspired by him and the lunch they shared together? Page 2: Is Ehrenreich wealthy‚ middle-class‚ or poor? If I was in Ehreneich’s shoes and was wealthy‚ I would be very curious to see how other people live. Page 3: The introduction to this book seems kind of ironic to me-while eating at an over-priced restaurant‚ Ehrenreich considers how women entering the workforce due to welfare reform are going to make
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Nickel and Dimed I have come to realize how much work low wage workers actually do. I have worked in a fast food restaurant only once and it was hard work but I did not get a major feel for the field because I was not there for very long. Barbara Ehrenreich did a good job as far as showing people‚ or telling people how it is to work in the low wage field but it was hard for me to get a real perception of everything because I knew in the back of my mind that she was not really a low wage worker. I do
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survive in this rigged economy? Our economy is set up to benefit the middle-upper class and to take away from the lower class. As we stand by and say to the lower class citizens “get a job”‚ “work harder and longer”. In Nickel and Dimed‚ Barbara Ehrenreich proves that minimum wage cannot sustain the quality of life that is perceived as the American Dream let alone provide for a livable life at all. No matter how hard you work or how determined you are it just isn’t possible to live and prosper off
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In the essay “Serving in Florida‚” Barbara Ehrenreich records managers being the “class enemy” and how low level jobs are inadequate in terms of pay. She states that most managers and assistant managers were prior underdog employees of the restaurant business and they are only there to make the big bucks for corporations. Ehrenreich bemoans how managers are the “class enemy”; for instance‚ they never allow servers to take a one second break but the manager’s just sit down all the time and don’t do
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2001 during the blow up of the internet. The book was spreading and a group of college freshmen were even assigned to read it. Ehrenreich even learned that a young man set out himself to try what she did but he started out in a homeless shelter and at the end‚ he had an apartment and thousands of dollars saved. He went on to write his own book and actually accuse Ehrenreich about her lack of motivation to succeed. She was even called “The Antichrist of North Carolina” and many people didn’t seem so
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