Post by cheyennebolin on Aug 9, 2011 0:25:09 GMT -5
Barbara Ehrenreich is a well educated and highly respected woman who wrote the non-fiction best seller, Nickel and Dimed: on not getting by in America. Ehrenreich went undercover as a simple woman, like many others just trying to survive. Even while having a PhD in biology she found that she didn’t quite posses all of the necessary skills needed for her first undercover job as a waitress. She found the job to be very demanding and degrading. She also didn’t realize that the pay was extremely lousy and not enough to support her. Like thousands of other Americans out there Ehrenreich had to find herself a second job as a housekeeper. After trying out both jobs within a twenty-four hour period she quit the housekeeping job as she found it to be too stressful. After two week of struggling to get by she moves on to her second out of three locations, Maine.
As Ehrenreich pursues her undercover identity she comes to find out just how hard living in America truly is. More often than once she finds herself struggling to pay her rent, in such cases she uses her emergency credit card to keep her afloat. Unfortunately, that’s not an option for the low wage citizens living the hard ships of the streets. Here in America some people, like Ehrenreich, know of poverty but have never experienced it. Without having experience in something it is easy to just shove it away and pay no mind to it, the people living pay check to pay check can’t just push the lurking fear of how they are going to make it through away. For them it’s impossible. Barbara Ehrenreich had the choice of walking away at anytime she wanted to. She was able to have this safety net because after all, she was only just undercover.
While the author meets a few interesting people she gets a glimpse into their struggles. She met a young woman working as a maid who had a petrifying fear of missing work. Her fear so strong she refused to go to the doctor about a sprain to her ankle that she got on the job. This just shows us her strength and strong will to keep going, knowing that if she doesn’t she would possibly have no job. Having no job would mean no money to care for herself and her unborn child. This young woman scarified her own health and well being for in the long run a fuss over a sprained ankle would probably hurt her financially in the future.
Low wage workers are stuck in a grind. Most have very little money, a so-so education, and no personal transportation. While better jobs may exist somewhere those of low income have a hard time reaching the bar due to these drawbacks. Ehrenreich struggled from time to time and endured some of the hardships most face. Even though she did this experiment she still has doesn’t have the full understanding of what thousands of Americans go through as a lifelong struggle and she probably never will.
As Ehrenreich pursues her undercover identity she comes to find out just how hard living in America truly is. More often than once she finds herself struggling to pay her rent, in such cases she uses her emergency credit card to keep her afloat. Unfortunately, that’s not an option for the low wage citizens living the hard ships of the streets. Here in America some people, like Ehrenreich, know of poverty but have never experienced it. Without having experience in something it is easy to just shove it away and pay no mind to it, the people living pay check to pay check can’t just push the lurking fear of how they are going to make it through away. For them it’s impossible. Barbara Ehrenreich had the choice of walking away at anytime she wanted to. She was able to have this safety net because after all, she was only just undercover.
While the author meets a few interesting people she gets a glimpse into their struggles. She met a young woman working as a maid who had a petrifying fear of missing work. Her fear so strong she refused to go to the doctor about a sprain to her ankle that she got on the job. This just shows us her strength and strong will to keep going, knowing that if she doesn’t she would possibly have no job. Having no job would mean no money to care for herself and her unborn child. This young woman scarified her own health and well being for in the long run a fuss over a sprained ankle would probably hurt her financially in the future.
Low wage workers are stuck in a grind. Most have very little money, a so-so education, and no personal transportation. While better jobs may exist somewhere those of low income have a hard time reaching the bar due to these drawbacks. Ehrenreich struggled from time to time and endured some of the hardships most face. Even though she did this experiment she still has doesn’t have the full understanding of what thousands of Americans go through as a lifelong struggle and she probably never will.