ND from Olivia Oppelt

In the book Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich, the author goes under dramatic changes to change her lifestyle in order to discover the harsh conditions of the lower working class. She undergoes a series of working minimum wage jobs such as a maid, waitress, and an employee at Wal-Mart to observe the reality of unfair working and poor housing conditions. Ehrenreich notes while working these various jobs, her coworkers’ living conditions and how she struggles to live on a minimum wage budget to pay for food, shelter, and transportation to support herself. Ehrenreich argues that that the low-class wages are not enough, considering the high costs of living expenses. Ehrenreich chooses to blame the middle and upper class societies for the poor conditions that the lower class have to put up with. After experiencing these struggles, she proposes more health benefits should be in place for low-wage workers and employers should have to pay their employees more per hour for their hardwork.

17. After reading Nickel and Dimed I believe that having any job is better than having no job at all because at least I would have some way of supporting myself and can make do with what I have with a little income than having no income at all and trying to support myself without living in poverty. While reading this book I felt angry because in the beginning Ehrenreich seemed like she took things for granted and thought living off a minimum wage job would be easy so she could just calculate it and that would be the end of the story, but little did she know unexpected things happen and expenses are hard to keep up with when people live off of minimum wage. I now feel better informed about the poor living conditions of people trying to support themselves and their families off of minimum wage jobs, and I feel like I sometimes take the little things in life for granted and am happy for even being employed. I feel that something needs to be done to improve the living situations of the poor.