Low wage workers: The Rejects of Society "They neglect their children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high” (221). Barbara Ehrenreich uses juxtaposition by comparing the working and upper class to implore sympathy; she makes the working class appear as victims, which brings empathy and guilt among the upper class. Society doesn’t see low wage workers by their genuine attitude towards their paying customers, but as an outcast because of their occupational status. However, one individual changes the way upper classes view the working class in the form of a book. Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed, brings the audience into her personal journey as an intentional low-wage worker. Ehrenreich accentuates how society views low-wage workers: she highlights how society sees low-wage workers as drug and alcohol abusers, she reveals how society set up traps to prove that low-wage workers are liars and thieves, and shows how society creates a psychological effect, which affects how the working class views themselves. Many assume a low-wagers life is miserable due to not having a well-paying job. The fact is that many people think the poor are poor because they constantly spend their money unwisely, maybe even on drugs and alcohol. Looking in a low wage worker’s perspective, they see a world where people assume they are substance abuser, because their lives seem miserable, however in the wrong way. Ehrenreich claims that low-wage workers spend their money wisely especially on rent and food. She shows a low-wagers real struggle as they try to find a home: “the big pr... ... middle of paper ... ...ful for creating a negative label on the working poor. Since no one will accept low wage workers in society, they only think of them as the ‘outcasts. Ehrenreich lastly states, “guilt doesn’t go anywhere far enough; the appropriate emotion is shame- shame at our dependency, in this case, on the underpaid labor of others” (221). She brings in an appeal to emotions of guilt and shame in her readers. She wants her readers to feel ashamed for treating the working class without respect. No one in society understands that the low-wagers job is what keeps America alive, if it wasn’t for the low wage class, there wouldn’t be restaurants servers, home care services, cashiers, etc. Society takes advantage of the little things life offers and Ehrenreich wants her audience to feel empathy towards their actions and to realize the low-wage workers are not society’s outcasts.
Nickel And Dimed: Occupations Barbara Ehrenreich provides evidence in “Nickel and Dimed” that she’s an outstanding author with this book. Its engaging and compelling, no question about that. But it’s hard to get from side to side at times since of the authors attitudes. Her key summit is to carry concentration to the scrape of the working deprived, but she manages to be both abusive and divisive. Occupation on attacking our industrialist system, she fails to become aware of that the endurance of upper classes seems to be what motivates the poor, fairly than what dispirits them. She blames capitalism for the injustices of the world, slightly than easy bad management techniques. A company should be shown that would benefit from a union and it will be shown to all around that one that will promote even better from decent, gentle management decisions. Most irritating, she’s constantly negative about the whole lot, even the positive experiences she has. When one of her colleagues offers to allow her move in with her and her family, not only does Ehrenreich turn the propose down, but she still describes it sneeringly as a "touched by an angel moment." Does she have to dribble with irony yet when writing about an authentically type deed? She condemns "visible Christians," any and all organization, yuppies, anybody who hires and consequently exploits maids, welfare reform, and still tosses in a prod at people who study John Grisham. Is there someone she likes? Her logic is troublesome as well. She begins her research to see if the functioning poor have some financial endurance tactics that the center class don’t know regarding, and decides at the conclusion that no, they don’t, as if admitting that this would signify the poor are imp...
According to a 1997 report of the National Coalition for the Homeless, “nearly one-fifth of all homeless people are employed in full or part-time jobs”. In the book Nickel and Dimed, On Not Getting by in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich, the author goes undercover in order to investigate and experience first-hand how life is for America’s “working poor”. The “working poor” are defined as individuals who have a full-time job, sometimes more than one, but still cannot afford the basics of shelter, food and adequate healthcare. As one can imagine, this led to many public health concerns. In each of the three locations visited, Ehrenreich realizes that for many, “getting by” in America can sometimes be a daunting task.
Imagine waking up and regretting going to work not because you don’t love your job, but because you are facing injustices at your workplace. When we apply for a job we expect to get hired and when we do, we are always nervous and anxious on our first day because we don 't know what to expect. In “Nickle and Dimed” by Barbara Ehrenreich, she is an undercover journalist that explores the impact of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act on the working poor in the United Sates. Ehrenreich explores the process of applications and the difficulties of being a low-wage worker in and outside the workplace. The process of applications could be scary as well as humiliating, in some cases. Sometimes, the application process seems unfair, and the workplace and its
In her unforgettable memoir, Barbara Ehrenreich sets out to explore the lives of the working poor under the proposed welfare reforms in her hometown, Key West, Florida. Temporarily discarding her middle class status, she resides in a small cheap cabin located in a swampy background that is forty-five minutes from work, dines at fast food restaurants, and searches all over the city for a job. This heart-wrenching yet infuriating account of hers reveals the struggles that the low-income workers have to face just to survive. In the except from Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich uses many rhetorical strategies to illustrate the conditions of the low wage workers including personal anecdotes of humiliation at interviews, lists of restrictions due to limited
The book Nickel and Dimed On (Not) Getting by in America, written by Barbara Ehrenreich is a book that relates the experience of how she survived living on poverty-level wages in America as a waitress, maid and a Wal-mart sales associate. Barbara left her comfortable surroundings as a journalist with a Ph.D in biology to work various "unskilled" and "under compensated" jobs in order to achieve, "the old-fashioned kind of journalism". In regards to leaving her comfortable lifestyles for a few months traveling through Florida to Maine and Minnesota, she discovered that people who are paid six to seven dollars an hour did not generate enough income for those who did not want to live outside of a home. The sad reality is that millions of people in America work everyday for those wages and have to just deal with it. The majority opinion is that some poor people are lazy or choose to be that way, when the truth is that individuals work everyday some even two jobs and still cannot make ends meet because of the poverty cycle.
Poverty and low wages have been a problem ever since money became the only thing that people began to care about. In Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich, she presents the question, “How does anyone live on the wages available to the unskilled?” This question is what started her experiment of living like a low wage worker in America. Ehrenreich ends up going to Key West, Portland, and Minneapolis to see how low wage work was dealt with in different states. With this experiment she developed her main argument which was that people working at low wages can’t live life in comfort because of how little they make monthly and that the economic system is to blame.
Millions of Americans work full-time, day in and day out, making near and sometimes just minimum wage. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them in part by the welfare claim, which promises that any job equals a better life. Barbara wondered how anyone can survive, let alone prosper, on $6-$7 an hour. Barbara moved from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, working in the cheapest lodgings available and accepting work as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing home aide, and Wal-Mart salesperson. She soon realizes that even the lowliest occupations require exhausting mental and physical efforts and in most cases more than one job was needed to make ends meet. Nickel and Dimed reveals low-wage America in all of its glory, consisting of
Barbara Ehrenreich's intent in the book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America exhibited how minimum wage isn't enough for Americans to get by on and that there's no hope for the lower class. Her main objective was achieved by living out the life of the "working poor". During the three cases studies she worked many jobs that are worked by many that are simply striving to live day to day. The jobs she had didn't generate sufficient income to avoid or help her rise out of poverty, in fact the six to seven dollar jobs made survival considerably difficult. Enitially, she believe the jobs didn't require any skill but while on her journey she started to realize they were stressful and drained a lot of energy. In addition to that she saw it was almost impossible to get out of the rut of low paying professions once you're in. Barbra Ehrenreich moved throughout three locations attempting to prove her argument. In those states she obtained a job as a waitress, hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing home aide, and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. Not only did she learn about the low wages but also the treatment that was shown to the workers.
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
“Workers Make Appeal to Taxpayers,” also follows Andrew Olson, a McDonald 's worker who makes $8.60 an hour, and his fiance who makes minimum wage in their experience under the poverty line. “Their salaries are so meager [...] that they rely on food stamps and Medicaid to get by,” says Kelly about Olson’s current living status, a lifestyle most Americans involuntarily live. Aside from the benefits wreaked by business owners and taxpayers, the workers living on poor salaries prove as the most positively and heavily affected; the three point nine percent of working citizens treated unfairly by big businesses. “Workers Make Appeal to Taxpayers” concludes with a quote from Olson, “Just because I work in fast food, does that mean I should have to just scrape by in
As Kendall notes, “the media portrays people who produce goods and services as much less interesting than those who excessively consume them” (429). Viewers want to be entertained, and simply just don’t care about the struggles of the working class. They overlook “low wages (and) lack of benefits” (429) because through caricature framing the media sways people to believe works to be stupid and reckless. Using this frame, they created people such as Homer Simpson, showing people that the working class doesn’t deserve raises, better healthcare, or any such luxuries because they can’t think for themselves. If that wasn't bad enough, the media often characterizes all workers as wanting to transcend their class (429). Through shows such as Extreme Makeover, they depict people who want to spice up their life and improve themselves as people, and that they need help to get to the next level. The media has undercut all of the hard work of this class, and has made people believe that the working class is unavailable, dumb and needs help to be their best self when in fact they are what allows for the success of
Ehrenreich’s use of statistical information also proves to her audience that she in fact has done her research on this topic. She admits that poverty is a social topic that she frequently talks about. She researched that in 1998 the National Coalition for the Homeless reported that nationwide on average it would take about a wage of $8.89 to afford a one bedroom apartment and that the odds of common welfare recipients landing a job that pays such a “living wage” were about 97 to 1. Ehrenreich experiences this statistic in first person when she set out job hunting in Key West, Florida when she applied to 20 different jobs, ranging from wait tables to housekeeping, and of those applications, zero were responded to.
...elp the working middle class from falling into poverty or to help the working poor rise out of poverty. Furthermore the working poor themselves lack the knowledge and power to demand reform. David Shipler says it best when he writes, “Relief will come, if at all, in an amalgam that recognizes both the society’s obligation through government and business, and the individual’s obligation through labor and family —and the commitment of both society and individual.” (Shipler 5786-5788) It is time for America to open its eyes and see the invisible working poor.
... workers come into contact with. This novel will make the reader question his financial choices as well as imagine himself in the shoes of a minimum-wage worker. It also points to the complications many have just with paying for housing accommodations and food in this country, while making only minimum wage. Ehrenreich discovers that that even the "lowliest" occupations require exhausting mental and physical efforts and imparts the reader with this fact. Nickel and Dimed reveals low-wage America in all its persistence and apprehension, as well as liberality.
During the middle of the book, Ehrenreich writes, "Maybe, it occurs to me, that I 'm getting a tiny glimpse of what it would be like to be black (p. 100)." I found this interesting because African Americans continuously face inequality due to race, which correlates with the inequalities that lower classes in society face. Throughout Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich emphasizes that there are "hidden costs" to being poor, which includes those in poverty who cannot find a way out. The working poor, who Ehrenreich gets to know through work, live in hotels paying daily. These people in the book describe to Ehrenreich that that would rent an apartment, but they cannot afford the security deposit and starting costs. The working poor in the book also must buy unhealthy meals at fast-food restaurants because they cannot afford kitchen appliances or food to cook with. People suffering in poverty often believe they are stuck there and cannot get out, so they