Summary Of Barbara Ehrenreich's This Land Is Their Land

The main problems facing contemporary America stem from the fact that the rich keep getting richer, the poor keep getting poorer, and this is causing a growing gap between the social classes that have existed in this country. In her book, This Land is Their Land, Barbara Ehrenreich describes many of the problems she sees in contemporary America. Using a different approach to develop a novel, Ehrenreich takes a series of blog posts and compiles them to discuss topics that people are thinking about, but are hesitant to say openly. These stories are short, but they are packed with much interesting information, and they focus on this growing social problem.
The first tale is one of “CEOs vs. Slaves” which discussed the pay gap between CEOs and

workers. This gap is astonishing, and continues to grow. Only 30 or 40 years ago, “CEOs of major companies earned 80 percent more, on average, than the third-highest-paid executive. By the early part of the twenty-first century, however, the gap between the CEO and the third in command ballooned up to 260 percent” (Ehrenreich, 20). She argues that the CEOs are getting richer by the minute, but they are unwilling to share this wealth and do not give their second or third in command an amount close to what they make. The people who work for them will probably get somewhere around minimum wage, maybe a dollar over if they are lucky. These people, who Ehrenreich compares and refers to as slaves, work hard, are not treated well, and do not get the pay they deserve for how hard they work.
In her book, Ehrenreich had an example of a man in Long Island, New York who paid two Indonesian women $100 a month and tortured them with cigarette burns, beatings, and other horrors. A more concrete example is between college professors and adjunct professor. Ehrenreich states that full time college professors get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, which may or may not be true. On the other hand, adjunct college professors get paid around $5,000 to teach a class for a semester. Obviously, the full time professors get more money, but the adjunct professors teach the same amount of days, but get severely less money.
The next two stories are interrelated because they are both about the struggles of different classes in America.

When you see a man in a suit walking down the street, you automatically think that he is a multi-million dollar owner of a company. That man is not necessarily the owner of a big company, he could just be getting out of a meeting where everyone had to dress nicely because the CEO of the coffee shop was going to be there. The people of America made their assumptions that if people dress a certain way then they are a big time corporate executive. What Ehrenreich does is make a list of “classes” that college students should be taking to inform them of what is happening in the real world once they graduate. These classes include : Elementary Class Structure of the U.S., Presidential Architecture, Race, Gender, and Occupational Preference, Topics in University Financing. The next story that is very closely related to this is called “could you afford to be poor?” This story talks about the high cost of living in low-income urban neighborhoods. Since there is such a high cost of living in these neighborhoods, it is harder to provide for your family if there is low income there. In these low-income neighborhoods, people are less likely to have bank accounts because of the expenses it can cause them to have if they have a low balance. To cash their checks, they have to pay anywhere from $5-$50 just to cash their check. So essentially you are paying more money to cash your check. They are also less likely to have access to a large supermarket store without driving a long way to get there, so they rely on smaller, but more expensive food stores with lower quality for their

meals.
Another important piece of information to point out is the issue of illegal immigrants and what America “owes” them. Some people believe that if they are caught living undocumented in America the they should be deported. The biggest reason they believe that is because it will open up millions of jobs. People who say that undocumented citizens should be deported is because they believe that they are taking their jobs in elite private nursing schools or law school. That is not the case at all. Undocumented people are mostly working at minimum wage paying jobs and are probably not attending that high of a level of education. There used to be just a fine of $5,000 for illegal immigrants but now deportation is the main course of action. Fatalities for Latinos has risen and dropped for other racial classes.
The Communist Manifesto had its’ 160th anniversary in 2008. The same topics have arisen and they are that the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer. The middle class is sliding towards ruin, so if that happens, it will be the upper elite class and the poor class that is either very close to or living below the poverty line. Immiseration is also a big issue that is wreaking havoc on middle and working class families. Immiseration is when you or a loved one has a terminating illness, like cancer, and have to get treatments, but you don’t have any health insurance to cover any of the costs, leaving you in more debt and in a financial struggle.
Another significant topic is titled “The Cheapskate Warfare State” by Ehrenreich. Many people are surprised at the number of military families that are on food stamps. When you enter the army, a food stamp application is included in the orientation packet. If you are in the front of a line of troops, you earn $17,000 a year. You would expect the people who keep our country free and safe and risk their lives for us each and every day would earn a little more than $17,000 a year. To make it even worse, the mother of a marine said that she had to charge over $1,000 a year for items that the military did not supple for their men, including camouflage paint and socks. Again, you would think the government would provide these courageous men who fight for our freedom with the things they need to go into battle.
The last topic to be addressed is titled “The Shame Game” by Ehrenreich. In this story, Ehrenreich says that she was a guest on a radio show where people called in and talked about their economic struggles. She listened to these callers say pretty much the same thing over and over again. These people got laid off, tried to find a job for such a long time, and either didn’t find one, or found one that only paid half of their former wage. She notes that most of the callers talked in third person, acting like it happened to a spouse or friend, when in reality, it most likely happened to them. She also told them to blame the government and to never blame themselves for getting laid off. Going along with blaming someone, a Saudi Arabian women was sentenced to 200 lashes, a form of torture, after accusing someone of raping her. Usually, it is the other way around and the assailant would get the form of torture, not the victim. Some women’s first response in the face of sexual violence is that they did something wrong and that they did something to have someone do that to them.
In the book, The American People; Creating a Nation and Society, Gary B. Nash agrees with what Barbara Ehrenreich says about how the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer. Republicans aimed to alter the economic neutrality of the Carter years and wanted to create and provide new chances for companies to flourish. Reagan proposed an economic recovery program in which there were tax cuts involved. These tax cuts resulted in the rich gaining far more than the middle and lower class Americans while the poverty stricken Americans, who are already the most disadvantaged, did not benefit at all.
As for myself, I agree that the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer. A lot of Americans are working long hours every single day and still can’t provide enough for their family and are living below the poverty line. I also agree with Ehrenreich and her examples in the story “CEOs vs. Slaves”. I think part of it has to do with your heritage. If you are born into a family that has money and everyone in your family has been making exorbitant amounts of money their whole life, you are most likely to not give your workers more than minimum wage. On the other hand, if you had to work for your money and you eventually make it up to the point of being a CEO, then you will most likely understand where your employees are coming from and are more likely to give them an above minimum wage salary.