It’s a good idea for Barbara Ehrenreich to put herself in the minimum wage jobs to actually learn or get to know and feel how some of the things people at low-income jobs go through just for them to make a living. Ehrenreich has to take a series of unglamorous jobs like waitressing, housecleaning, retail sales which pays a minimum wage but income she earns from these jobs were not enough so she has to do two minimum wage jobs at a time in order to get a better living. Ehrenreich first had two waitressing jobs but due to the pressure from one of the waitressing jobs, she quit it and went for housekeeping job instead. So that brought her back in doing one waitressing job and a housekeeping job. Ehrenreich approach to me is less effective because …show more content…
Her research or writing would have made more meaning if other sectors of the economy are being taking into consideration, for example if there are two people who are married and leaves in the same house with both doing a minimum wage jobs there is no need for them to look for a second job because their income will compliment each other and this can help them to get a better living since they can share bills incurred together. It’s just unfortunate Ehrenreich encountered mean and unprofessional managers but in my own Experience, I worked at Wendy’s were employees are treated with respect and are even given free food once a day on our break time but Ehrenreich experience does not mean that, that is what goes on everywhere. I think Ehrenreich was using more of pathos because all that she wrote about was based on her emotions which prevented her from seen the bright side of a minimum wage jobs and the fun involved in working at these jobs Ehrenreich passage has a lot of errors because she wrote it in terms of just a single sector of the economy which are single people and this is not enough to conclude the living conditions of a
For example, She notes that “ One of the women explains to me that teams do not necessary return to the same houses week after week, nor do you have any guarantee of being on the same team from one day to the next.” What this quote means is it explains the way the company tries to prevent the groups from making social contact. I can relate to Ehrenreich’s argument because while I was working at Jewel as a bagger. I had similar routines and experienced some of the ways that the system tried to work my body more than my mind. For example, while working there I was ordered to do many tasks to keep me busy and from interacting and making friendships with fellow employees. If this was allowed then we would be able to talk about how unfair our job is and how we are treated. The author tries to argue that her job keeps her mind busy and she won't be able to have time to think or react., in other words, this blue collar job is
She puts herself in the mindset of many women in her position by getting a job as a waitress, getting a small apartment, and working minimum wage to get by day to day. Ehrenreich’s states, her main goal is “to lift poor women out of poverty as well as raise their self-esteem.” (p. 224.) This is a powerful statement Ehrenreich makes because she is not doing this for the sake of experimenting she honestly wants to make a difference in American women lives. The story shows Ehrenreich’s experience as working as minimum waitress in Hearthside as well as describing her coworkers and their
In the book, Ehrenreich documented her experiences working a series of minimum wage jobs as a waitress, a maid and a nursing home dietary assistant. Ehrenreich found that in order to make ends meet and afford a place to live and food to eat, she needed to work two jobs, which left her in a constant state of exhaustion and pain. She also observed of her fellow servers that, “everyone who lacks a working husband or boyfriend seems to have a second job” (2001, p. 48). Many of her co-workers shared the same challenge with affordable living arrangements, some living in a van, with their mother, sharing rooms with strangers or even living in a dry-docked boat (Ehrenreich, 2001). Not only did Ehrenreich find that the wages offered unskilled workers were not enough to meet the basic needs of food and shelter, but that there are a “host of special costs” (2001, p. 27) incurred by the working poor. For example, workers are required to invest their own funds in partial uniform and pay ...
Starting off with high hopes, I quickly came to realize that job opportunities were hard to find. I came to have a lot of respect for anyone who felt that college was not right for them and went on to pursue manual jobs or any job out of the white-collar spectrum. His biggest examples are his mother the waitress, known as Rosie and his uncle the mechanic, known as Joe. Rosie and Joe found success and happiness in their jobs that most people look down upon.
As a person living the life style Barbara Ehrenriech is experimenting in, I can relate to most of the stuff she goes through. Like the long hours, poor working environment and, low wages. This is all very common to everyone that lives this life style. Some people even suffer from physical and mental issues,
The lower class is struggling to provide for their families. Even just for single people, living alone is a challenge. The mix of low wages and high rent prices is killing the lower classes chances of living comfortably. After reading this it is evident that even when you have a job, you still can be struggling. Ehrenreich ends by saying “ours is an economic culture that reflexively rewards and flatters the prosperous while punishing and insulting the poor, no matter how hard they work. Turning this around is the task of a lifetime, at
Should we have the minimum wage rise? Nowadays, many people argue that we should increase the minimum wage because we haven’t had an increase since 2009. People who are living on the minimum wage struggle a lot raising their families. (Webster) Minimum wage means the lowest daily or monthly remuneration that employers may legally pay to workers. On the other hand living wage means the minimum amount that a worker must earn to afford his/her basic necessities, without public or private assistance
Imagine working under poor conditions for over 40 hours a week to afford basic human necessities only to remain nothing more than a cog in a corporal machine seen unworthy of livable wages. While this may seem unrealistic, it proves as reality for many lower class Americans. Minimum wage has seen a drastic decline in relation to the inflation of living costs, an issue addressed in Lew Prince’s, “The American Dream Needs a Fair Minimum Wage”. In the article, Prince, a business owner, states, “... in 1979, the minimum wage was $2.90 -- that would be $9.50, adjusted for inflation in 2014 dollars”. Even with this information, many americans above the poverty level line argue against an increase in wages. Although opinions often
Ehrenreich published her story to draw attention to the crisis that results from living on minimum wage. One argument in our society is that there is a labor shortage. People feel that there are not enough job opportunities in our country, and as a result this increases the unemployment rate. Ehrenreich disagrees with this argument. She states, “There is no real ‘labor shortage,’ only a shortage of people willing to work at wages currently being offered” (Ehrenreich 202). Many people are not willing to work if they know that they will not be able to live on the pay. Throughout her book, Ehrenreich describes the inequality that exists within the workplace. In many work environments, civil liberties must be “checked at the door” (Ehrenreich 210). When one enters the minimum wage workforce, equality is lost. Workers suffer from low pay, unfair working conditions, and undesirable work hours. Rarely are minimum wage workers talked about in government affairs or the daily news. In our society, they are
Since this is not realistic expectation from one person, she cannot complete all family work by herself and wants help
Ehrenreich argues that the work available to the individuals in poverty, are all jobs the rich do not want to do. This can be seen when she takes on waitressing, explaining her experience with customers stating that their demands are “requests as if by bees”(17). She must come to every
Many Americans are still struggling to make ends meet. According to the Census Bureau, 104 million people. A third of all Americans have incomes below twice the poverty line. While many of these people are unemployed, many others are the working poor, people trying to support themselves with low and minimum wage jobs. The task of such workers was taken up by Barbara Ehrenreich in her 2001 book Nickled and Dimed. The book, which recounts her experiences, is important because it offers a gripping, first person account of the real difficulties faced by many Americans today. One way the book illuminates these difficulties is by showing how a full-time low wage salary isn’t enough to pay one’s living expenses. Ehrenreich begins each experiment with significant advantages over many minimum wage workers.
As financial issues take part with minimum wage, so does your mentality. Ehrenreich believes that if we are such a free democratic country, why do we have to “check our civil liberties out the door, leave America and all it supposedly stands for behind, and learn to zip
...ause he thinks you can make the most out of the least, and she is constantly nagging for more than she can afford.
Division of labor, a married couple should always share, help each other out in order to