Relate the book to three outside events or topics (i.e. – a personal experience, an article of the week (from whichever school year), an event or item you saw on the news, etc.).
Three Richest Americans Now Own More Wealth Than Bottom Half of US Combined: Report
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/11/08/three-richest-americans-now-own-more-wealth-bottom-half-us-combined-report
A major topic in Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed is that of socioeconomic status. It is made clear that many Americans suffer economically, and that money is essentially the root of most evils. In Johnson’s article “Three Richest Americans Now Own More Wealth Than Bottom Half of US Combined”, Johnson further discusses the wage gap, and the economic inequities American’s
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are facing. Johnson provides real statistics that back up nearly every claim made in Nickel and Dimed. To exemplify, Ehrenreich describes her wealthy corrupt bosses claiming that, “They don't cut you no slack. You give and you give and they take” (Ehrenreich 19). This stance is backed up by Johnson as he states, “Over recent decades, an incredibly disproportionate share of America's income and wealth gains has flowed to the top of our economic spectrum.” (par.3). Essentially Johnson claims that the rich continue to get richer, whereas the poor continue to get poorer. This is also a claim of Ehrenreich, thus proving both the novel and the article share similar views, and beliefs on socioeconomic issues in America. Thanks To 'Fight For $15' Minimum Wage, McDonald's Unveils Job-Replacing Self-Service Kiosks Nationwide https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2016/11/29/thanks-to-fight-for-15-minimum-wage-mcdonalds-unveils-job-replacing-self-service-kiosks-nationwide/#7840cf914fbc Another important topic in Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed, is that of minimum wage jobs.
Typically, these jobs are disregarded, viewed as requiring no skill, and thus employees in such occupations are easily replaceable. In Nickel and Dimed, the minimum wage employees, or simply the “working class”, lose and gain their jobs constantly. This just goes to show how these fields are usually looked down upon, and not taken into true consideration. This also equates to why such jobs receive the low pay they do, because they're so easy to acquire/lose. Similarly, in Rensi’s “ Thanks to ‘Fight for $15’ Minimum Wage, McDonald’s Unveils Job-replacing Self-Service Kiosks Nationwide”, this condescending image is also provided. In his article, Rensi implicitly claims that minimum-wage jobs are disposable, and thus more businesses are switching to kiosks, as a replacement for these low skill jobs. He states, “Earlier this month, McDonald’s announced the nationwide roll-out of touch screen self-service kiosks. In a video the company released to showcase the new customer experience, it’s striking to see employees who once would have managed a cash register now reduced to monitoring a customer’s choices at an iPad-style kiosk.” (par. 4). In both this article, and in Nickel and Dimed the disposability of minimum jobs is frequently expressed, whether it be explicitly or implicitly. All in all, this reality is quite ironic, because without the working class, many vital jobs would not be
accomplished. The importance of these unimportant jobs is ignored. An Allegation, Then a Prestigious Professorship http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2017/11/dartmouth_s_todd_heatherton_allegedly_groped_his_graduate_student_in_2002.html Corporate corruption, is yet another recurring theme throughout Ehrenreich’s novel, Nickel and Dimed. This corruption is presented in many forms. From sexual abuse, to careless bosses, the corruption seems endless. To exemplify, when Ehrenreich began working at the nursing home, she was told by one of the supervisors there, to let her know if one of the male workers ever made her uncomfortable. This matter was not even emphasized, rather it was just briefly mentioned. Implying that sexual abuse in the workplace was a normality. In Engber’s article, a similar issue is discussed. Engber describes a specific incident in which sexual abuse occurred in the workplace, and additionally, how nothing happened to the perpetrator. These stories are far too common, and add to the horror present in American society. Furthermore, this corruption seems most common in settings with even greater issues, such as poverty, and lack of power. In essence, corruption is only a piece of a larger domino effect, in which one issue leads to many others, all in a large perpetual cycle of corruption.
The invisible workforce consists of the low-wage workers that face harsh working conditions, a few or no benefits, and long hours of labor that exceed the regular business week. Barbara Ehrenreich, narrates her experience of entering the service workforce, in the book Nickel and Dimed. She proves that getting by in America working a minimum wage job is impossible. Although, the book was written in the 1990’s, the conditions in which minimum wage workers lived still prevail today. Minimum wage no longer serves its original purpose of providing a living wage for the invisible workforce.
As a sociologist we look at two different perspectives, there is structural functional perspective and the conflict perspective. Out of the two perspectives I agree with the conflict perspective more than I do the structural functional perspective, and I’m going to use this perspective throughout my paper. I choose this perspective because as much as we want society to be “fair” and it work smoothly, it just doesn’t. We have struggle for power and I believe there are the groups that are powerful and wealthy, and there are some groups that are the working class and struggle to make it. I also picked this perspective because in the book Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich gave up the power and wealth to struggle with the working class to show us how truly difficult it sometimes can be.
Ehrenreich, B. (2011). Nicke and dimed: On (not) getting by in america. New York, NY: Picador.
In Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed, the author frequently focuses on the demeanor and appearance of the people she meets and sees during her research trips. Throughout the book she makes witty, opinionated comments that can easily be taken out of context. Because of this, her wisecracks convey the impression of her being narrow-minded. Also, these comments do not help her with any of her arguments because of how she comes off. Ehrenreich improper use of humor puts across the impression of her being biased.
Reading Nickel and Dimed, enlightened me to see how some people have to live. The idea behind writing the book provided an interesting look into poverty, however, Ehrenreich did not offer any real solution to the problem at hand. Ehrenreich made the assumption that all persons working these low paying positions are uneducated, unskilled, and just off of welfare. Which this is not entirely true a lot of these courageous people have some education if not college degrees. In the book I believe some people are richer in their families with love and respect that the highest paying careers could not satisfy. Material items are not as important to a great deal of the population. As long as their loved ones have a roof over their head, food on the table and clothes to wear the rest is just icing. I know people who have fortune in their bank accounts and they are some of the poorest individuals you could ever meet.
Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed, worked at minimum wage paying jobs and reported the hardships that people had to go through on a day-to-day basis. A critic responded by saying, “This is simply the case of an academic who is forced to get a real job.” Ehrenriech’s reasoning for joining the working-class is to report why people who must be on welfare, continue to stay on welfare. Her reports show there are many hardships that go along with minimum wage jobs, in the areas of drug abuse, fatigue, the idea of invisibility, education and the American Dream. A big disadvantage that the lower class has compared to the wealthy is a lack of quality education.
The American Dream is attainable by each and every one of us. The American Dream is the idea that everyone should have an equal opportunity to achieve success through hard work and determination. Every successful person living today had to work hard for their position. They climb the ranks until they got to where they stand today. Everyone could become successful and live the American dream as long as they work very hard starting at a young age into adulthood and study and perform well in school. They must study for school and get a good education. In the book “Nickel and Dimed”, Barbara is struggling to get along because she is surviving off jobs that require little to no education and experience.
Smith, Noah. “How to Fix America's Wealth Inequality: Teach Americans to Be Cheap.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Pub., 12 March 2013. Web. 06 April 2014. .
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.
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
With each class comes a certain level in financial standing, the lower class having the lowest income and the upper class having the highest income. According to Mantsios’ “Class in America” the wealthiest one percent of the American population hold thirty-four percent of the total national wealth and while this is going on nearly thirty-seven million Americans across the nation live in unrelenting poverty (Mantsios 284-6). There is a clear difference in the way that these two groups of people live, one is extreme poverty and the other extremely
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
Ehrenreich, Barbara (2001). Nickel and Dimed On (Not) Getting By in America. Published- New York, New York.
An article from the Atlantic, my life as a retail worker: Nasty, Brutish and poor, provides the inside details of the contemporary low-wage job. The author, Joseph Williams, goes through the challenges being a low-wage employee and the additional side jobs he has to perform. The low-wage workers, who earn little more than minimum wage, are treated unfairly by the upper management in today’s occupations. In the article, Williams have to do extra work after their shits without any overtime pay. Williams had to “mop the floors in the bathroom, replace the toilet paper and scrub the toilets if necessary” and also “Vacuum and Empty the garbage. Wipe down the glass front doors, every night, even if they don’t really need it. It was all part of the job, done after your shift has ended but without overtime pay” (Joseph Williams). The research shows people with higher position jobs take advantage of the low-wage workers. They recognize the low-wage employees need the job to survive and are less likely to quit the job. Therefore, they can force the low-wage employees to perform extra labor. Also, the management has problem trusting low-wage workers. Williams explains how the security “pats the retail workers down” and checks their “bottom of the backpack” before they leave the store for breaks (Williams). The managements recognize the low-wage salary can’t afford other things than paying for lodging and food, so they believe the employees will likely to steal from their work. Also, in down and out in London and Paris, George Orwell goes through same unfair labor practices and lack of trust when working as a “ploungers” in Hotel X. After each shifts, the security checked for stolen food, he says “Then he stepped out into the passage, made me take off my coat and carefully prodded me all over, searching for stolen food”
Many critics claim that that raising minimum wage increases unemployment, especially for unskilled workers, and harms small businesses, including grocery stores and restaurants. The argument declares that companies such as these rely mostly on unskilled workers for labor, and if the minimum wage increases, then their profits and, therefore, hiring would decline, creating a...