ND from Amanda Eby

Nickel and Dimed

As Ehrenreich attempts to survive in different parts of the country while working at low-wage jobs, many of the problems she faces are unexpected.  In Minneapolis, for example, she expected housing to be cheaper and easier to find since it isn’t a big tourist location.  On the contrary, however, she arrives to find an extremely difficult housing market and has to stay in more expensive motels while waiting for apartments to open up, which never happens.  Another problem arose in Key West, where she applied to hotels only to find that most of them do not have the openings that they are advertising, but rather have constant advertisements in the newspapers because their employees quit their jobs so often.  The author encounters this problem in Maine, too, but is more prepared for it and applies to multiple hotels at once in the hope that one of them may have an opening.

            Both of these problems came as surprises, and suggest the fact that much of the world of the poor and impoverished is unknown to the upper and middle classes, who much of the time base their knowledge of the working class on assumptions or stereotypes.  Ehrenreich addresses this problem in the Evaluation and goes on to suggest that unless this changes, the plight of the poor will go largely unanswered, since the upper classes hold most of the political power.

            Another issue she talks about in the Evaluation is the amount of pay many of the working poor are receiving.  A study she mentions says that in order to make a living, a given person should make around thirty thousand dollars a year, while in reality most of the working poor make about half of that.  She argues that therein lie the two main reasons for poverty in America, along with the fact that none of her co-workers seemed ready or able to speak out against unfair treatment and pay.

            Reader’s Guide question 10: “How do you think a living wage should be calculated?”  The question could be raised as to whether ‘living wage’ refers to the amount of money one would need to survive, or whether it refers to quality of life and being paid enough to make one’s life enjoyable, which it would not be if you lived in a car and had to eat cheap, nonperishable food all the time.  Personally, I think it means the amount of pay someone should make in order to live off of and, if not able to afford expensive forms of entertainment or some unnecessary things such as cigarettes or alcohol, have the ability to at least afford decent housing, food, and transportation.