ND from Kerry Blodgett

Nickel and Dimed

Barbara Ehrenreich’s experiences during Nickel and Dimed were of financial hardships, including low wages, inadequate housing and unemployment. She also faced the physical hardship of being overworked.
She begins her life as a low wage worker in Key West, Florida. There she holds a job as a waitress. She soon has to pick up another waitressing job just to pay for rent and basic necessitates. She realizes that it is hard for many low wage workers to survive on these wages, many of her fellow employees have to live in their car or with their extended families and still like her even have to have multiple jobs.
Next Ehrenreich moved to Maine, where she held two jobs again. They were being housecleaning maid during the week and dietary aid for a nursing home on the weekends. Here she sees and experiences the strains of many low wage workers. Many of the maids she works with have physical ailments, having back and knee problems, but due to the lack on insurance many have to work through them. Enrenreich also saw how underappreciated low wage workers are when she had to feed the entire Alzheimer's ward at the nursing home and got no compensation for it.
She ended her experience in Minneapolis, where she struggled to get both a job and a house she could afford. In Minneapolis she saw how low wage workers were treated almost as criminals. She had to take a drug test for Wal-Mart, and feared she couldn’t pass due to a drug she had taken. Once she got the drug test, her supervisor would not let her be a “time theft” on the job. She realized in Minneapolis she could not make it and had to give up. She had the luxury of doing so, but many other workers did not.
After this experience she feels that low wage workers should be paid more, since they are the backbone of society.

17) I feel that having a job is better than having no job. Having a job would at least give me some form of income to get me through. I don’t feel like the government should support me.