Post by paigewallace on Aug 7, 2011 10:50:04 GMT -5
Barbara Ehrenreich, a journalist, has this fabulous idea for a new writing piece. She invisions someone going through today’s low-wage work place, and their struggle to survive. As she tells her boss about her wonderful idea, she soon becomes a little less than enthusiastic when he tells her that she needs to be the one to try out the work world herself. Nickle and Dimed is the book written by Barbara about just that, her struggle to survive in her journey to the poor life. My question is, how does she really know what its like? She always had a security net.
Echrenreich starts herself off with a “head start.” She sets aside some money to buy rent with, gas, food, emergencies, etc. She also sets herself limitations, she will never go without food, housing, or transportation. All of this before hand thinking suggests to me that Echrenreich never really experienced what it was really like to struggle and survive. One of her friends quotes ““I don’t mind, really, because I guess I’m a simple person, and I don’t want what they have. I mean, it’s nothing to me. But what I would like is to be able to take a day off now and then…if I had to…and still be able to buy groceries the next day.” That quote shows just how much thought and effort people who are truly surviving on minnimum wage jobs to support their family put into this.
Echrenreich would never really know what it was honestly like unless she was doing it to literally survive. She could has stopped anytime she wanted to, in fact she did a few times. There were several times throughout the book where it mentions Echrenreich going home to visit with friends, pay bills, and grab music and personal belongings. Do the poor society of new york city get to just decided one day they are tired of living on the street so they’ll just take a break and sleep in their luxuary bed at their real house? NO! This is why this whole book seems bogus to me. Sure, she did go through many trials throughout the different places wether it be florida, or main, that she worked. Sure, she struggled to find places with rent she could afford. That’s generally as far as someone with a “real life” can go though. To me, half of the struggle in a poor society would be the worry. Worrying about if your going to be able to feed yourself, or your family the next day. Wondering what would happen to you if you got sick and couldn’t afford proper medical care. Feeling the anxiety that “this is real” there is no easy way out. You do what you have to do in order to get by. Echrenreich did not feel that. She knew that anytime she was in real danger she could go running back home to her “real world, real life.” The sad thing is, that many people today are doing a lot worse off than the people Echrenreich came into contact with, and they most certainly don’t have a security net to fall back on.
Echrenreich starts herself off with a “head start.” She sets aside some money to buy rent with, gas, food, emergencies, etc. She also sets herself limitations, she will never go without food, housing, or transportation. All of this before hand thinking suggests to me that Echrenreich never really experienced what it was really like to struggle and survive. One of her friends quotes ““I don’t mind, really, because I guess I’m a simple person, and I don’t want what they have. I mean, it’s nothing to me. But what I would like is to be able to take a day off now and then…if I had to…and still be able to buy groceries the next day.” That quote shows just how much thought and effort people who are truly surviving on minnimum wage jobs to support their family put into this.
Echrenreich would never really know what it was honestly like unless she was doing it to literally survive. She could has stopped anytime she wanted to, in fact she did a few times. There were several times throughout the book where it mentions Echrenreich going home to visit with friends, pay bills, and grab music and personal belongings. Do the poor society of new york city get to just decided one day they are tired of living on the street so they’ll just take a break and sleep in their luxuary bed at their real house? NO! This is why this whole book seems bogus to me. Sure, she did go through many trials throughout the different places wether it be florida, or main, that she worked. Sure, she struggled to find places with rent she could afford. That’s generally as far as someone with a “real life” can go though. To me, half of the struggle in a poor society would be the worry. Worrying about if your going to be able to feed yourself, or your family the next day. Wondering what would happen to you if you got sick and couldn’t afford proper medical care. Feeling the anxiety that “this is real” there is no easy way out. You do what you have to do in order to get by. Echrenreich did not feel that. She knew that anytime she was in real danger she could go running back home to her “real world, real life.” The sad thing is, that many people today are doing a lot worse off than the people Echrenreich came into contact with, and they most certainly don’t have a security net to fall back on.