Analysis Of Nickel And Dimed On By Barbara Ehrenreich

“How does anyone live on the wage available to the unskilled?” This is the question Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed On (Not) Getting By In America, asked herself while discussing the topic of poverty with a friend of hers’. She believed someone needed to figure this question out on their own, but she also believed that she was not fit on taking on this experiment. Nickel and Dimed, in this sense, means to expose to financial hardship or bankruptcy by the accumulation of small expenses, bills, etc. To present these difficulties, Ehrenreich traveled to three different location in which she has a different job in each state.To keep the book as real and raw as I possibly can be she writes it in a personal style; her background

What seems to have set her back is that she is getting a place to stay that is “offered an acceptable level of safety and privacy.” This makes her not credible because she is making room for her to be comfortable, while people who are in fact living in the lower class do not have the luxury to pick and choose what their living conditions are going to be like. Along with that, she has other advantages that play to her favor is there computer and car. Just like the luxury to choose your living accommodations many do not have the privilege of having their car, instead of taking public transportation or have a computer where they can look up a job like Ehrenreich did. When explaining her coworkers living situations, she states that Tina was living in a Day in because “they have no car” (21) to get to work. Other advantages Ehrenreich has that weaken her credibility are the ability to only stay for a month at a time, living on her own, and even being able to take breaks and go home. Though these things might make her experiment and herself not credible, there is no doubt there is a multitude of lessons to learn from her

One of the most important things to take away from this is that many of those who receive government aid are in fact very had worked. We are used to believing these people are lazy and are just trying to scam the system into giving them money. But as seen in the jobs Ehrenreich obtained there are various hard working employees; who would, in fact, benefit greatly from this help. The people who stood out most to me would be Gail and Holly. Gail puts her heart and soul into her work and treats the customers very kindly. She goes out of her way to help any person in need, including Ehrenreich. She explains “ To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor, to everyone else. As Gail, one of my restaurant coworkers put it, "you give and you give."” (120). The lower class citizens are the people who keep people like Ehrenreich a float. She would have nothing to report on if everyone had a successful and thriving life, and that is just not the case. In Holly’s perspective, she pushed herself to the limit to make money, keep in mind she was also pregnant and was doing this to give her child a good life. “This, perhaps as much as the money, is what keeps Holly going through nausea and pain, and even some of the livelier, bolder women seem inordinately sensitive to how he's feeling about them” (66). This job is how she survives in