Nickel And Dimed Essay

Nickel and Dimed Essay
2.Were your perceptions of the blue collar Americans transformed or reinforced by nickel and dimmed? Have your notions of poverty and prosperity
changed since reading the book? What about your own treatments of waiters, maids, salespeople?
My perception of the blue collar Americans was transformed as a result of the book. Previously I had always felt that is someone wanted to find a
job, they could. If a hard working American went out into the work force looking for a job that could support them, then they would certainly find one.
However after reading the book, I now understand that it is not always this easy. Sometimes the jobs that are offered to the blue collar Americans are
not good enough to support themselves or their...show more content...
3.How do booming national and international chains– restaurants, hotels, retail outlets, cleaning services, and eldercare facilities В– affect the treatment
and aspirations of low–wage workers? Consider how market competition and the push for profits drive the nickel and dimming of America's lowest
paid.
These booming national and international chains affect the treatment and aspirations of low wage workers because since these low paid workers
are so easy to replace they end up getting no say in their working conditions or wages. If they argue with their employers, then the risk getting fired
simply because it is easier for them to fire the employer then to have to give the worker any rights. This puts a really large limit on what these low
paid workers can acquire. They end up not being able to have good working conditions or proper jobs. We've created a society of cheap
consumerism, a cheap economy, cheap cities, cheap buildings, and cheap lives. In order to drive this system, we need cheap labor. Those corporate
profits don't come from a genie in the bottle. The wages that they earn are insufficient to obtain life's basic necessities. Everything costs money, your
shelter so you can rest and go to your job, your clothes so you can go to your job, your food so that you can survive to go to your job, to earn the
money needed to pay for your clothes, your shelter, and buy your food, so that you can
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Nickel and Dimed Essay
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...show more content...
She surprisingly turns down the higher paying job at Menard's and takes the job at Wal–Mart. Often throughout the book she mentions that it is said
that "you're paid what you're worth", saying that little pay results in you not being to good of a person. With that label they were looked down on and
viewed kind of as untouchables. They had low pay, long hours, no overtime pay, and no benefits which leads to low socio–economic–status a job that
no one wants to pursue. She stressed that poverty wasn't a sustainable condition, it's a state of emergency. Citizens in the lower classes are left to
fend for themselves and the ten, eight, or six dollar jobs are all that's there for them. What she would encourage them to do is to demand to be paid
what they're worth because in the end they will be better off. Nickel and Dimed relates to political science because it deals with public opinion,
political economy, and exercise of power of both fear and authority in general. Not that the working class's opinion mattered to all, but it was
expressed and many times not heard. They were tired of having time for just work and not even having enough income to live in a safe environment
with nutritious food. They would like to be paid what they're worth. The three dimensions of power are displayed also; pluralism was shown when an
employee gets hired. They make their greiveinces known, they need a job. They have a

Nickel And Dimed
Nickel and Dimed On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Enrenreich was written in 2001 a book that displays the struggles of individual's
living in poverty. This book illustrates the barriers of the average American living off of minimum wage to supply the needs of getting to work,
providing shelter and having food to eat. Enrenreich takes on the opportunity to show how she provided ways to come up with transportation, shelter,
and food. She set up a regulation for herself during this experiment by not dipping into her money account unless necessary. She also found a
reasonable cheap, safe house and a decent job. The reason Enrenreich states for doing this project was to determine if she, "could match income to
expenses, as the truly poor...show more content...
I disagreed with this statement above because it is almost as if even though she know much about poverty as a woman in middle class she's
looking beneath them. I am not saying that what I interpret from this text is how she thought, but it is what I was lead to believe. She also
mentions how no one acknowledges that she was a writer from my perspective, it was almost as if she felt that they should have been plastered
with questions. She hid the fact that she was a writer with the exception of telling a few as if that would have changed the way her coworkers
viewed her as a person. The question that stumbled upon me while reading this selection made me wonder why would a middle class woman wants to
come back to experience the life of a poor person as if it was some sort of mockery. It seemed almost as if being poor living off of minimum wage is a
choice whether a life decision. Does everybody believe that everybody can get out of poverty and become a part of the middle class or

Nickel and Dimed Essays
In Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, Barbara Ehrenreich tells a powerful and gritty story of daily survival. Her tale transcends the
gap that exists between rich and poor and relays a powerful accounting of the dark corners that lie somewhere beyond the popular portrayal of
American prosperity. Throughout this book the reader will be intimately introduced to the world of the "working poor", a place unfamiliar to the vast
majority of affluent and middle–class Americans. What makes this world particularly real is the fact that we have all come across the hard–working
hotel maid, store associate, or restaurant waitress but we hardly ever think of what their actual lives are like? We regularly dismiss these people as
...show more content...
To accomplish this, she provided herself a small amount of startup money, and traveled to multiple locations around theUnited States where she
conducted her "experiment". She went to Key West, FL; Orchard Beach, ME; and Minneapolis, MN; and found employment and a place to live, with
a goal of saving enough by the end of the month to pay the next month's rent. Her employment consisted of restaurant waitress and hotel maid in
Florida, nursing home aide and a house cleaning maid in Maine, and a Wal–Mart associate in Minnesota.
As the author moved from locale to locale she identified a variety of recurring hardships faced by the working poor. The chief concern for many was
housing. Finding and maintaining economical housing was the principal source of disruption in their lives. For many of the working poor it's not
uncommon to spend more than 50% of income on housing. These leaves a scarce amount of money left over for anything else and creates a situation
where the person is always worried about losing their shelter. In a nutshell, it's Ehrenreich's conviction that wages are too low and rents are too high.
She does speak with many individuals who simply cannot afford the high rental rates and are forced to live with family, friends, or in some

Nickel and Dimed Essay example
"
"Somebody should research that." (Ehrenreich, 2001). During the final course of her 30.00 lunch with Louis Lapham, editor of Harpers, Barbara
Ehrenreich wondered how people could survive on minimum wage. She would soon be eating her words as Lapham pointed to her and said, "You".
Reluctant at first to be the one doing the research, Ehrenreich finally capitulates and begins life as a minimum wage worker in America. The main idea
of her experiment was to spend one month in each place and make enough to pay the second month's rent (p.5–6). She wonders if she will find some
special techniques that the poor use to get by. She finds that there are no secret economies, people just do the best they can with what they have
available....show more content...
They also need to arrange their workdays around the bus schedule. Therefore, by having access to a car at all times, Ehrenreich already has many
benefits that others might not.
Ehrenreich starts her experiment close to home in Key West, Florida where she discovers that a dilapidated trailer close to work is out of her price
range. She comments, "Trailer trash is now something to aspire to" ( p.12). Eventually, she moves into a trailer closer to work but for now, she finds a
pleasant efficiency unit about 45 minutes from work. After filling out over twenty applications in three days, Ehrenreich has received no phone calls.
She discovers that many companies stockpile applications because of their high turnover rates, so help–wanted ads are not an indication of job
availability. A short time later, Ehrenreich is hired as a waitress at the Hearthside, a restaurant attached to a discount chain hotel. Ehrenreich's account
of her training with Gail, another waitress, is an entertaining read. "All food must be trayed, and the reason she's so tired today is she woke up in a
cold sweat thinking of her boyfriend, who was killed a few months ago scuffle in an upstate prison. No refills on lemonade. And the reason he was in
prison...." (p.17)
At the Hearthside, Ehrenreich realizes that she is not overqualified, as she had feared, but incom–petent. Gail's reassurances do not comfort her. She is
determined to fulfill the

Nickel and Dimed
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America| March 29
2009
A riveting tale about the world of low class workers, Ehrenreich puts into words what most are don't acknowledge or are afraid to acknowledge.
Through first–hand experience, Ehrenreich successfully navigates her way through the low wage work by working such common low wage jobs as
waitressing, housecleaning, and sales. While along the way discovering that each job encompasses their own organizational structure, culture, and
identity that she is focused to discover and conform with while being paid no more than $7.00 an hour and even at some points as little as $2.43 (plus
tips). Ehrenreich persuasively forces us to realize that the American dream is slowly...show more content...
(Ehrenreich pg. 25)
A strong culture is said to exist where staff respond to stimulus because of their alignment to organizational values. (Dayton Business Journal website,
2002, para 1) Therefore, the Hearthside can be said to have a strong organizational culture. This is demonstrated through the employee's dedication to
the same goal of providing quality service. This can be seen through Gail as she attempted to provide extra croutons on the salad, waitresses using tip
money to provide a customer with a meal, the cooks cooking the food in a quality way and having the food out on–time, and even the dishwashers
taking some sort of pride in accomplishing the dishes in a timely matter. Ironically the biggest detriment to providing quality service at the Hearthside
was management and their stingy policies, which demand a mandated amount of sour cream or croutons. The identity of the Hearthside is a difficult
one to define and discuss because Ehrenreich doesn't provide us with much information about their advertising, logos, or mission statements, but from
what the book indicates Hearthside can identify as a "family restaurant". This identity can be shown through the type of clientele. ("The plurality of my
customers are hardworking locals– truck drivers, construction workers, even housekeepers from the attached hotel." Ehrenreich pg. 19) The Hearthside
adds to their

Nickel And Dimed Analysis
Ehrenreich wrote Nickel and Dimed to share her experience of living as a low–wage worker. In order for Ehrenreich to experience being a low–wage
worker she traveled around the country taking on different jobs. A low–wage job to me is a job that doesn't provide you enough money to live off of.
Although Ehrenreich's limit of never being homeless is unfair, generally her rules and limits are fair. Ehrenreich points out her first rule for the
experiment is to not tell her employers that she is a writer with several college degrees (4). Her first rule is fair because employers and co–workers
might be suspicious of her if they knew her background. While I was in high school, I lifeguarded and taught swim lessons at a public pool all
year around. My parents are upper middle class, so I often got asked, "Why do I have a job?" my response always was that I didn't want to rely on
my parents for gas, clothes, and spending money. I worked 19 hours a week, five hours Monday through Thursday then went to school for eight
hours. This experience taught me to manage my time with work and school. Ehrenreich claims that her second rule for the experiment is that she has
to take the job that will benefit her financially, and do her best to keep it, while not being lazy (4). Ehrenreich's second rule is fair because she is
challenging herself to overcome any...show more content...
Ehrenreich's limit is not fair because she is not getting the experience of a low–wage worker that manages to have a job but still cant afford a place to
live in. There was a homeless guy that I knew named Timmy who created his own business by shoveling snow, picking up trash in parking lots, and
cutting grass. Even though he had multiple jobs he still couldn't manage to afford an apartment. The only things Timmy could afford were McDonald's,
washing clothes, and supporting his alcohol

Nickel And Dimed Essay
Generous People A journalist who has Ph.D in biology wanted to know how people could live with just seven dollars per hour. In Nickel and Dimed,
the author, Barbara Ehrenreich, introduces how people live with low–wage jobs. She told that employers sometime see their employees as potential
criminal, their employees' work environments do not suit for their works, and the employees's wages does not satisfy what they need to survive.
Employers should not treat their employees as a potential criminal. At the end of the book, it said, "Stop treating working people as potential criminals
and let them have the right to organize for better wages and working conditions." (238). When Barbara worked at Key West, Florida, the employer said
they heard...show more content...
"The Economic Policy Institute recently reviwed dozens of studies of what constitutes a "living wage" and came up with an average figure of $30,000
a year for a family of one adult and two children, which amounts to a wage of $14 an hour." (213). According to Ehrenreich, about 60 percent of
American workers earn less than $14 per hour. In all of places where Ehrenreich worked paid seven dollars or less per hour, which means those of
people who work in those place cannot even afford to have some essentials services such as health insurance and telephone. Since they cannot even
struggle to get out, politicians could takee an action; however, they didn't do any works. "The Democrats are not eager to find flaws in the period of
"unprecedented prosperity" they take credit for; the Republicans have lost interest in the poor now that "welfare–as–we–know–it" has ended." (217).
And, they also had a catastrophic error. "In fact, very little is known about the fate of former welfare recipients because the 1996 welfare reform
legislation bithely failed to incude any provision for monitoring their postwelfare economic condition." (217). Congressmen need to read this book to
realize the problem, and not satisfy themselves by ignoring failures because they have

Essay on Nickel and Dimed
Seeing Eye to Eye with Barbara Ehrenreich's article "Nickel and Dimed."
In her article, "Nickel and Dimed," Barbara Ehrenreich says that "many people earn far
less than they need to live on" ( 270.) A good percent of high school graduates move right on to college. They graduate college and then they usually
move on to make a good amount of money to live a satisfying life. However, college is not made for everyone, and what would our world be with
only professionals? I agree with Ehrenreich that the minimum wage is too low because, while people with open opportunities earn a better future for
their families, many like my own, are fighting to get through on a daily basis due to our economy.
Ehrenreich mentions in her...show more content...
As Ehrenreich states "employers will look at that $30,000 figure [...] and see nothing but bankruptcy ahead" (270.) This makes it hard for
employers to pay a living wage. They are afraid of their employees declaring bankruptcy while working for them. Well, how are people supposed to
make the money if the employers won't hire them in the first place? I understand that people that do not go to college should not and probably
could not make as much money as someone that graduated college. Some people have a family before even graduating high school, let alone
college. But why is this any reason to keep these people from getting a well paying job. This was also a problem for my mother. After working at
her job for about two years they told her that she could not move on in the field unless she started going to college. Of course my mom took
advantage of this ultimatum and went to college. She was lucky to find a job that would work with and around her schedule. She is now going to
college part–time and working full–time. She probably won't graduate for at least eight years, but she is very determined and I know that she will do
it because she knows that it is the best for her and out family.
Many people don't realize that some people go home to a "car or a van [at the end of the night], or some people are forced to just "work through" their
illness or injury "because [they don't

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