Analysis Of Barbara Ehrenreich´s Nickel And Dimed

Nickel and Dimed

The book ‘Nickel and Dimed’ follows the author Barbra Ehrenreich on her on a journalism experiment to see how someone could get by on the minimum wage of $6 or $7. While Barbra is familiar with the poverty issue in American she herself with a Ph.D. and comfortable life was not familiar with feeling the effects of poverty. Before the experiment started Barbra set down some ground rules, first being, she could not search for jobs that require skills from her higher education (Ehrenreich, 2011, p. 4). All the jobs she applied for had to be starting level jobs that someone coming out of high school could obtain. Second rule, she had to take the job offering the highest wage, and do her best to hold the position (Ehrenreich, 2011, p. 4). She was to try her hardest at all the jobs and not slack off reading or try to speak out against management

The first few nights Barbra stays at Motel 6, which had questionable hygiene (Ehrenreich, 2011, p. 53). Barbra tried many places for housing first being Glenwood Apartment which was $65 a week with a shared bathroom and kitchen, with someone described as a “character, but clean” (Ehrenreich, 2011, p. 55) but during the tour Barbra could not even see the kitchen because there was a man sleeping in it and the room she would be staying in had no window (Ehrenreich, 2011, p. 56). While cheap the place was a bust. Barbra looks at another place for $150 a week and one for $110 a week but had very little privacy while being ground floor on a busy street (Ehrenreich, 2011, p. 56). Which left her with Blue Haven Motel, which offered a cottage for $120 a week a $100 deposit including a bedroom, living area, with TV and linens included (Ehrenreich, 2011, p. 56). Barbra in this city again is doing better than some of the people she is working with. One of the young girls at her cleaning job can only afford to have a small bag of Doritos for lunch even though she is living with her boyfriend and mother (Ehrenreich, 2011, p. 78). Most of the people Barbra worked with were living with extended family while Pauline one of the older women owned her own house but all the bedrooms were full with her kids and grandkids so she slept on the couch in the living room (Ehrenreich, 2011, p.

She explains that the poverty level for any size family is figured by taking the cost of food and multiplying it by three (Ehrenreich, 2011, p. 200). When this figure was first introduced in the 1960s the percent of money spent on food and housing in a family’s budget were similar. Comparing it to the percent of money spent on food (24%) and housing (29%) in the 1999s you’ll see there’s a lot more money being spent on housing (37%) than food (16%) (Ehrenreich, 2011, p. 200). So on paper the poverty level seems to be decreasing and make it seem like most people in America are not living in poverty. This clearly is not the case, looking at the percentages given by Ehrenreich (2011), the cost of housing increased dramatically leaving many people still living in poverty. The way American is framing the poverty levels is very deceiving, many people are living in poverty, and finding it extremely hard to get out of poverty. Ehrenreich in her evaluation said, “the ‘working poor,’ as approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropist of our society” (Ehrenreich, 2011, p. 221). She says this because throughout every job she had and all the co-workers she encountered they all had families or personal concerns, but put those to the side for their shifts to make sure others were feed, had clean homes, clean fitting rooms and organized shopping centers (Ehrenreich, 2011,