In The Book Nickel And Dimed Its Author Barbara Ehrenreich,... Essay - 758 words

In the book Nickel and Dimed its author Barbara Ehrenreich, is given an assignment to investigate the life of a minimum wage worker. Her primary reason for going under cover is to see if she can match income to expenses as the truly poor attempt to do everyday. The author chooses Portland in the state of Maine as the location of her investigation. The reason is that this heavily industrialized city it is located in the New England, which is particularly popular among the immigrants form all over the world to start their new lives on the territory of the United States. Ehrenreichs motives gave her the tools to experience poverty from a statistical standpoint, but kept her from experiencing the problems poor people faced when it really mattered, such as going hungry. In the second chapter of the book, the reader becomes very aware of Ehrenreichs financial situation, and what are her insights onto the problem she investigates. She is a well off worker who has not had a minimum wage job since she was 18 years old.


That is what makes this book interesting, the fact that the reader is learning of the struggles of the poor just as Ehrenreich had. She portrays each person very well and makes one get to know the people and their different struggles. She does this in addition to finding out if the math works out between minimum wage and housing, bills food etc. Because she goes from the top to the bottom, the first hand experience and flat out shock at some points makes the book very interesting. Although Ehrenreichs motive was supposed to be straight forward, throughout her very first few days she found out that even though she doesnt necessarily live in poverty like the people she worked with, while undergoing the assignment, did everyday. Barbara learned of their hardships and struggles.


She actually began to feel like one of them, waking up with physical pain, hating her bosses and dreading work. Barbara finds out that among employers there is always some racial prejudice present. The people of nationalities other than white are oftentimes viewed as more ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

...................You are reading a preview................... Visit our Blog and Unlock Full Access to this essay

Continue READING the FULL Essay by clicking HERE

Essay Tags: minimum wage, ehrenreich, barbara, worker, wage

This is an Essay sample / Research paper, you can use it for your research of: In The Book Nickel And Dimed Its Author Barbara Ehrenreich