Barbara Ehrenreich's Serving In Florida

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Life is full of hardships, ups and downs, and everywhere in between. Barbara Ehrenreich took on this life experience of working a minimum wage job and only living off what she earned. All the work she did was the for her book Nickel and Dimed, or the excerpt from Serving in Florida. I have worked a minimum wage job and understand how hard it could be to try and live on what little you earn. In Ehrenreich’s Serving in Florida, she first expresses, “ Picture a fat person’s hell, and I don't mean a place with no food. Instead there is everything you might eat if eating had no bodily consequences- the cheese fries, the chicken-fried steaks, the fudge- laden desserts- only here every bite must be paid for, one way or another, in human discomfort” (394). At first all I could think …show more content…

Making only about “ base pay of $2.15 an hour” (Ehrenreich 399) and then having to share the money from personal tips with the other busboys and dishwashers making it hard to get by. Using the data she collected on her excursion to find information for her book, Ehrenreich experienced the hard life of the economy we all live in. Hard to get by, and even harder when there is children, a house, and food to worry about. SOhow then does anyone get by? Community, there are many communities that are full of poor and homeless people. People living in their cars and working minimum wage jobs that only pay for the gas in their car and maybe food from the Mcdonalds dollar menu. Understanding this problem communities pull together and put up institutions to help feed and give resting spots for those living in tough times. Taking the research Ehrenreich found, everyone could learn and understand how lucky they are if they are not working minimum wage jobs, but jobs that pay way wages enough to have a house and raise children without having to eat at soup

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