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Rent, gas, utilities, food, and clothing become a burden because the market is not set up for those who make the least but those who make more than that and it really does not matter how much more because at a certain level, it is all too much and the low earners are simply left out of the system altogether. Nickel and Dimed also taught me that social responsibility is mandatory if we are to address this problem and do something about it. While Ehrenreich does not open address solutions for the problems she encountered, it is clear that something must...
I do not think I will ever be able to walk into a Wal-Mart and look at the "associates" the same way again. Those with less understanding say that if they do not want to work there, they should find better jobs but this book taught me that there is more to it than that. Nothing is ever that plain and simple. We are each other's responsibility and only when we accept that fact and become proactive will society change for the better.
Work Cited
Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed. New York: Metropolitan Books. 2001.
Work Cited
Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed. New York: Metropolitan Books. 2001.
Nickeled and Dimed In an attempt to prevent families from living below the poverty line in the United States, the government ensures that people are paid a minimum-wage. Through this minimum-wage, the government believes that people can afford to pay their rents and bills, and cover the costs of their groceries, etc. However, this is not true, as the minimum-wage is indeed too little for the average family to survive on.
Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed Barbara Ehrenreich is a writer and journalist who decided to conduct an experiment and find out for herself what it is like to live on the minimum wage. For one month at a time she entered various communities, taking on minimum wage positions and trying to stay ahead. Ehrenreich detailed her experience in the book Nickel and Dimed. This books offers insight into the real
Ehrenreich Nickeled and Dimed In Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, the workers trapped in dead-end service sector jobs have virtually no chance at all of escaping poverty or obtaining any meaningful quality of life. That is one of the main themes of the book, a constant struggle for mere subsistence with a high cost of living and a very poor quality of life. These jobs are all the same in that
Nickel and Dream People who are born or raised in the United States share unique character traits because of the American culture. Because this is considered a land of freedom and opportunity there are rights and gifts that are promised to each citizen. The American Dream is the unique idea that anyone who is willing to work hard can come from nothing and achieve their life's goals and ambitions so long
" (Ehrenreich, 2001, p.44) At least as a waitress, Ehrenreich is visible. Maids, which are usually, except in all-white areas like Maine, utterly invisible and socially isolated in the socially stratified community. Worse yet, while Ehrenreich might have had some anxiety about passing, even educated Black women occasionally have trouble 'passing' for the class they are a part of. 'Oh Look Mommy a baby maid," Ehrenreich quotes the poet "Audre Lorde"
The sharpness of the division that Ehrenreich perceives might be at least partially a symptom of her ultimate lack of subjectivity. In her introduction, Ehrenreich admits that she has many advantages over actual minimum-wage workers, not the least of which is the knowledge that even should she fail in this endeavor, she has a nice home and a "real" job to return to, and that she is not in any