Minimum Wage Workers In Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel And Dimed

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In the expose Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich portrays a minimum wage worker to show the people that are working minimum wage jobs need more help then they are getting. Ehrenreich uses many ways of persuasion to get the reader to want to do something about minimum wage. In the introduction of the book she states
…My husband and companion of seventeen years was $4.50-an-hour warehouse worker when I fell in with him, escaping eventually and with huge relief to become an organizer for Teamsters. My father had been a copper miner; uncles and grandfathers worked in the mines or for the Union Pacific. So to me, sitting at a desk all day was not only a privilege but a duty: something I owed to all to all those people in my life, living and dead

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Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel And Dimed

Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed: on (Not) Getting by in America. New York, Metropolitan Books, 2001. Ehrenreich’s tale of a low wage life offers insight into the world of poverty; One of which often goes unnoticed. She addresses the brutal reality of a full time job accompanied with no health care, no benefits, and enough pay to barely make it through the night. To find out for herself if it was actually possible to have a substantial life on minimum wage, Ehrenreich leaves her well-off world…

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Barbara Ehrenreich Nickel And Dimed Analysis

Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Nickel and Dimed: On Not Getting By in America” is an exposé on working as an unskilled laborer in America. In the excerpt we read Ehrenreich leaves her home to go undercover in Key West, Florida with $1,300, no job, and no place to live. She puts down her deposit at an “$500-a-month efficiency” 30 miles from town and gets a full-time job as a waitress. Unable to live on just one minimum wage job, Ehrenreich gets a job at another restaurant. When this proves to be too much,…

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Analysis Of Barbara Ehrenreich´s Nickel And Dimed

Although Nickel and Dimed was published 15 years ago, the topic of raising the minimum wage may be more pertinent than ever before. Just last summer, a $15 wage bill that was proposed made it clear that the debate is far from over. Barbara Ehrenreich, a best selling author and previous winner of the National Magazine Award, wrote Nickel and Dimed while undercover at several minimum wage jobs. The idea for the book was prompted during a lunch with Lewis Lapham, an editor for Harper’s, after Ehrenreich…

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Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel And Dimed: Analysis

Over the last century, minimum wage jobs have become increasingly less effective in providing sufficient income for a comfortable American life. This, in tandem with the inflating prices of affordable housing has made it very difficult for United States citizens to live complacently. In her book, Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich explores the issue of poverty in America to the conclusion that in order to end these challenges with the lower class, people must limit doing things that would lead…

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Nickel And Dimed Summary And Response Essay

McNally 1 Tommy McNally Douglas West ESQ Senior Writing 26 January 2015 Nickel and Dimed: Chapter 1 Summary & Response In Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich arrogantly narrates an expos é of people in the minimum wage workforce and their living conditions and problems. Ehrenreich first began to immerse herself in the world of minimum wage work by searching the Key West job market for the highest paying job offer. After Ehrenreich rules out several positions because…

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Essay on American Economy

Maria Acevedo Mr. Treviño WRC 1013.009 22 February 2012 “Those Afloat” Regarding the American economy, Robert Reich and Barbara Eichenreich both illustrate how educated people have an advantage over the ones who have not pursued a career. These individuals provide ideas or jobs for uncultured people. People with a career and a job have the opportunity to receive a variety of benefits, including, having the opportunity for others to do their jobs. The authors above mention how people who have taken…

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Sociological Analysis Of Nickel And Dimed

Nickel and Dimed: Analysis “In the 21st century, I think the heroes will be the people who will improve the quality of life, fight poverty and introduce more sustainable” by Bertrand Piccard. This quote will help show how tough some people can be in order to come out of poverty. As Barbara Ehrenreich was given the assignment to test how people survive through poverty. She decides to do this in three different locations in Florida, Maine, and Minnesota. She starts off her journey in Florida where…

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Nickel And Dimed: A Theoretical Analysis

to fixing the issue of people not being able to live on the minimum wage. My own experience working at low paying jobs makes me believe that one needs to teach fishing and not cooking. I have heard the saying, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." One should teach people trades. Teaching someone a trade gives them dignity to help themselves move out of low paying jobs. Barbara Ehrenreich decided as part of a research project to try working…

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