Nickel and Dimed

In Nickel and Dimed, written by Barbara Ehrenreich, Ehrenreich is thrown into the world of minimum wage working. Going in as in undercover journalist, Ehrenreich sets out to discover if the welfare reform is successful or if it leaves people stuck in poverty. In each of the three places Ehrenreich visits, she runs into many of the same problems. One of the main problems for her is housing. She discovers that much of the low income housing is actually out of reach for minimum wage workers. To find the most affordable housing Ehrenreich must sacrifice comfort and general cleanliness. But even just finding housing can prove to be a problem. Ehrenreich must spend the first few days or even weeks in a hotel, which can lead to being extremely costly. While Ehrenreich searches for a place to live, she also applies to as many minimum wage jobs as possible. This, too, proves to be a problem, as some employers say they are hiring even if they aren’t because many people quit and leave without notice. Once she settles with a job, it surprises her how difficult the jobs can actually be. Each job requires it’s own special skill set, and can be extremely hard if you do not have those skills. Most of the jobs Ehrenreich acquires also put her in physical pain, but they don’t offer any sort of health benefits, or even enough money to buy her own pain medication. While working at these jobs, Ehrenreich is made to feel inferior to the bosses, and can’t stand up for herself for fear of losing the job. If she loses her job, she can’t afford rent and is forced to live in her car. Many of her fellow employees lived with family of friends so that the cost of rent could be lowered. Ehrenreich finds that to actually live with a house and food, you must have two jobs. She also finds that working two jobs is nearly impossible, especially for people who are older or have any medical conditions. All of Ehrenreich’s experiences have opened her eyes to the world of poverty. She has seen that poverty is not a result of laziness or a person being bad; it is a result of hardworking people not being paid enough to support themselves, much less their families. In the “Evaluation” chapter, Ehrenreich argues that the welfare reform does not work, and until employers raise their employee’s pay and landlord’s lower the cost of housing, the people stuck in poverty will never get out.

Question #17: I do think that having any job is better then no job at all, just as having any sort of income is better then none. This book made me a little more understanding, but I feel that Ehrenreich failed to touch on one huge point. None of the people she worked with were educated beyond college. I understand that money and time are needed for college, but it seems that no effort was made to find a better job. They worked the jobs they were qualified for. Ehrenreich went to college and was qualified for a higher paying job.