Barba Ehrenreich in 1998 departs on a field study of the poor in America’s working class. She left her comfortable life behind in search of what it was like to live and work in these minimum-wage jobs and what it takes to live off them. She is determined to document the people she interacts with, lives, and her own experiences for the public to view, to see how these people are being treated, and the conditions. Throughout the class, we have discussed the struggles of this working class and even if there have been laws set in place to help them, the stories from Ehrenreich’s experiment and experiences still ring true in the modern-day working class. When Ehrenreich departs to find her first set of jobs, she tries to find a housekeeping job at…show more content… During a cleaning, she had to get on her hands and knees to scrub the floor while the homeowner just stood and watched her, regarding her as nothing other than some kind of animal in a zoo to watch in amazement. In this field, there is a lot of mistrust between the client and the cleaner. Most assume they are incompetent, can't speak English, or are criminals. In the book, Ehrenreich states that some clients would either be around or put up cameras to make sure they are all doing their jobs correctly and to discourage theft. That is something that still happens now, too, as many housekeepers get blamed for theft quite often. (Lecture, 4/3/2024) The Maid's services cost $25 per hour yet the cleaners were only paid $6.50, the owner also did not care about the physical condition of the workers, complaining when someone called out and uncaring when Ehrenreich showed up to work covered in rashes. They are not seen as people, just a cog in the machine making the employer's money. Again, the case is in many working-class jobs, such as the factory jobs we discussed in class and The
