Nickel and Dimed

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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. In Florida she almost develops a hate for managment, one being that managers can sit around hours on end and get away with it and secondly because the showed no passion for the job they had. One job wasnt good enough at that time for her, given that she couldn’t pay her rent. She tries working two jobs for one day but gives up because she felt it would be to much of a toll on her. With plentiful job opportunities, Maine was next on her list. Jobs there were no better than in the Key West because they payed the same. Barbra started out living in Motel 6 but it got to expensive so she accepted a c... ... middle of paper ... ...survival gives a political perspective to the book. She throws in her socialist views that creates controversy among some reviewers. Whether or not she exadurated her results or possibly skewed them to fit her argument didn't mask that she still ended up with results that were believable. While she met the criteria that made it all realistic, she still failed to tell about both views of the governments way of things. She specifically belittled our capitalism and promoted socialism. She refused to use all resources that she had at hand and denied help from the best assistance that could be provided. Ehrenreich familiarizes the upper class Americans with the predicament that the working poor and succeeds at proving that the task was difficult. She made it obvious that employees at this status aren't being paid by what they're worth but what's the solution?

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