Nickel and dimed introduction. Nickel and Dimed Introduction Summary 2022-10-22
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Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America is a book written by Barbara Ehrenreich, published in 2001. In the book, Ehrenreich embarks on a journey to understand the struggles of low-wage workers in the United States. To do so, she decides to live and work in a variety of low-wage jobs, including working as a waitress, a hotel maid, and a nursing home aide.
Throughout her journey, Ehrenreich documents her experiences and the challenges she faces while trying to make ends meet on a low income. She finds that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for many low-wage workers to make a living wage and provide for themselves and their families. Ehrenreich's book highlights the difficulties faced by low-wage workers, including lack of access to affordable housing and healthcare, and the constant struggle to make ends meet.
One of the key themes of Nickel and Dimed is the discrepancy between the reality of low-wage work and the rhetoric often used to justify low wages. Ehrenreich argues that low-wage work is often depicted as a temporary or transitional stage, something that people do while they are looking for a "better" job. However, she finds that for many people, low-wage work is a permanent reality, and that they are unable to move up the economic ladder no matter how hard they work.
Another important theme in the book is the way in which the low-wage workforce is exploited by companies and the government. Ehrenreich argues that companies are able to keep wages low and benefits scarce by relying on a constant supply of low-wage workers who are desperate for work. She also points out that the government is often unwilling or unable to address the needs of low-wage workers, leaving them to fend for themselves in a difficult and often hostile economic environment.
Nickel and Dimed is a powerful and thought-provoking book that shines a light on the struggles of low-wage workers in the United States. It is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the challenges faced by these workers and the ways in which our society fails to provide them with the support and resources they need to succeed.
Nickel and Dimed Study Guide
Ehrenreich says that while she tried to stick to the rules, at some point she broke them all. Barbara starts making the rounds again at hotels. So I confined myself to three years of college, listing my real-life alma mater. Within that pay, it is questioned whether they have enough money for a day of food. Throughout her story, Ehrenreich poses a hypothetical question regarding survival concerns that face many Americans working on minimum wages. Achieving the American Dream can be difficult, if not impossible for many people with stumbling blocks and obstacles along the way as portrayed in Nickel and Dimed, due to the cost of living in contrast to the wage of low or middle class earners.
She cannot imagine how these people survive, and wants to uncover their tricks. One of these is living in a tourist area, where the power and resources of the wealthy mean that the poor are relegated by the cost and availability of housing to ever farther and unpleasant living quarters. Although his family was very rich, they had a poor communication with each other. From reading this book, my perceptions of poverty and prosperity have pretty much stayed the same. Nickel and Dimed After reading the book Nickel and Dimed I have come to realize how much work low wage workers actually do.
Even though a person can be fully employed at a place that earns minimum wage, it is still very difficult to get by, especially if you have a whole family to feed. It is based on the US economy and not poverty all over the world. This meant that she had to do one or more jobs for sustainability. First, I would always have a car. Meanwhile, welfare reform slashed social services, and the safety net most civilized countries offer their less privileged citizens was in America being demolished almost altogether not that it ever quite existed to the extent that it does in, say, France. Ohio and the city of Cincinnati is much larger than Massachusetts and the city of Pittsfield.
And that is how we should see the poverty of so many millions of low-wage Americans—as a state of emergency. In essence, as much as history shaped America, it keeps the low-income group at bay. Nevertheless, her hour-by-hour description of her days shows how monotonous such labor can be, especially given her long commute. Many times I associate fast food workers with poverty, or when I see an elderly woman working at WalMart I also associate that with poverty. Finally, I set some reassuring limits to whatever tribulations I might have to endure. Upon her arrival in Florida, Ehrenreich is hired as a waitress. Ehrenreich travels to Florida, Maine, and Minnesota, looking for jobs and places to live on a minimum wage salary.
Nickel and Dimed: On (NOT) Getting By in America Introduction Summary
The point was not so much to become poor as to get a sense of the spectrum of low-wage work that existed--from waitressing to maid work, from feeding the elderly to prowling the aisles of Wal-Mart. She will declare the project is at an end if she runs out of money to pay her rent, and she will not go hungry. If Lyddie had not gone to the factory she would have no money left. The hands-and-knees approach is a definite selling point for corporate cleaning services like The Maids. Along the journey through her working career Polachek displays the struggle women in the workforce faced in not only finding employment that could feed their family but jobs that provide fair and humane treatment. She wants to persuade us to realize that American is not the land of opportunity as promised and portrayed and there are regular people who are struggling to live a comfortable life. She starts to be in constant pain, and takes four ibuprofens before each shift to deal with spasms in her upper back.
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America “Introduction: Getting Ready” Summary and Analysis
In Jan 2013, I moved into my own place until with the help of my youngest Lyddie's Argumentative Essay 714 Words 3 Pages Working at the factory provides Lyddie with a great deal of money, more than she has ever got before. Here, she concentrates on housing, which is generally precarious trailers, boarding rooms and usually far from ideal—though this often depends, again, on comparative advantages like owning a trailer or being a native English speaker the Haitian servers seem to have the most crowded situation. How does anyone live on the wages available to the unskilled? Its constitution, way of life, and the opportunities it offers to its people are favorable. In addition, it protects the interest of its citizens and even citizens of other countries, out of good will. My aim here was much more straightforward and objective—just to see whether I could match income to expenses, as the truly poor attempt to do every day. Nonetheless, apart from working for the same purpose, American society has pending issues that seem to remind them of the past.
These include laziness, personal content, inadequate opportunities, and capping, which may be introduced through minimum wages, among others. Barbara Ehrenreich Rhetorical Analysis 1009 Words 5 Pages Verbal irony through a sarcastic tone strengthens the central claim since many people respond well to being addressed in a more satirical, direct manner. Bills add up fast, and this puts many people in a situation in which they lose hope. After the rising crescendo of tensions, the climax is abruptly cut off when Barbara barges out. In Key West I drove my own; in other cities I used Rent-A-Wrecks, which I paid for with a credit card rather than my earnings. Both of these authors were writing for the same cause, was it possible to survive on minimum wage in America, they had different ideas, tactics, work environments, pay, project time period, the seven year time difference, and of course the end result.
"Nickel and Dimed" Grade: 95% This is a response paper to...
She will work in order to make enough to pay the next month's rent. They keep the TV on, especially the soaps, which keep them going. In her second assignment, Ehrenreich goes to Maine, where she finds it difficult to survive again. For example, I never once in the two years I went over there had seen the family eating together. Nickel and Dimed: On Not Getting By in America study guide contains a biography of author Barbara Ehrenreich, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.
Nickel and Dimed Chapter 1: Serving in Florida Summary & Analysis
With the setting in Key West, Florida, the main character being Ehrenreich herself, decides to experiment with the possibilities of existing as a person on the lower terminal of the socioeconomic ladder. I cannot recall a time that I ever thought that the sixty year old checker at WalMart could possibly be rich. These people toil to earn meager wages that are less than their monthly expenses and needs. You will never see anything—from a motel bathroom to a restaurant meal—in quite the same way again. While working as a maid, Ehrenreich witnesses the abuse her coworkers live up to every day. Ehrenreich decided to do an inside report after her lunch with Lewis Lapham.
What Ehrenreich produces in Nickel and Dimed is, as we shall see, fascinating and revelatory, but it is not the straightforward, scientific account of an experiment. Her stated values make her likable to her target audience, the middle- or upper-class reader, who may see her as their proxy: she is one of "us. Nickel and Dimed reveals low-rent America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity—a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate stratagems for survival. In fact, according to her, these conditions are unlivable and can be referred to as another form of slavery although not official. In other words, Barbara is engaging in this experiment with many built-in advantages. If she decided simply to complete the project by adding up wages and expenses on a piece of paper, she already knows that she would fail.
