labor or live in an inferior building. Therefore, the author makes some rules for herself on this…
For each, she had to master new skills, learn the social environment of each job, and work laboriously for hours on end. She further analyzes and evaluates the rising problem of poverty. A single, educated woman – with the ability to rely on conveniences such as emergency cash, a car, and a credit card; a woman who was without children or a family to support – struggled to make ends meet working one or more jobs demonstrates the inadequacy of the minimum wage and its fail to sufficiently supply an individual or family with the means necessary to support the “working poor.” Companies are reluctant to raise the pay of their employees and can punish and/or fire employees who step out of line. “When you enter the low-wage workplace, you check your civil liberties at the door…We can hardly pride ourselves on being the world’s preeminent democracy if large numbers of citizens spend half of their waking hours in what amounts to a dictatorship.” (Ehrenreich 210) The calculated $30,000 “living wage” for a family of three comes to $14 an hour, and 60 percent of Americans earns less than that. The lifestyles of the poor are tainted with low self-esteem and the need to “work through” fatigue, injury, illness, etc. “They are [the lifestyles] emergency situations. And that is how we should see the poverty of so many millions of low-wage Americans – as a state of emergency.” (Ehrenreich…
“No one ever said that you could work hard—harder even than you ever thought possible—and still find yourself sinking even deeper into poverty and debt.” This is a quote by Barbara Ehrenreich who wrote “Nickel and Dimed,” she is a journalist with a PHD in biology and writes about her own story as she chooses to change her entire lifestyle, face the hardships of being a part of the working poor class just to see if she can survive. Throughout the book she illustrated the different jobs she endured and the struggles that came along with the jobs. Her story highlights the social inequality she experienced based on her status, working poor class, routine lifestyle, her experience living on the edge and the stagnant pay she received. There was a lot of social inequality in her journey that many Americans seem to overlook on the poor working class.…
hear family, and her friends undergo many hardships such as bad living conditions, little to no…
line”. Gilbert is representative of women all over the nation who face similar trials daily. The documentary, Paycheck to Paycheck, shows us a portrayal of women’s lives that’s less about work/life balance and more about work/life survival. Like Katrina, earning $9.49 an hour (in some cases even less) many women face the struggles of poverty and living paycheck to paycheck. In Katrina’s situation, as a single woman, she was barely able to meet financial obligations because her salary was devoted to monthly expenses. These expenses surpassed the bi-weekly $750 check she received to make ends meet. Although Katrina works a 40 - or more - hour week, she still must…
She never enrolled into any colleges, instead she moved to Dillon, North Carolina for 6 months working as a hostess at a restaurant named “The Peddler” making 6.25 dollars an hour. After 6 months she decides to move back to Hawaii in the year of 2002. She moved in with her boyfriend's house (William Roback) for a year working as a receptionist making 9 dollars an hour. Later that year she ended her job merely because she was pregnant with her second child Joseph. On the night of January 15, 2003 she gave birth to the her first boy (Joseph Kahanuola…
Her experience into the world of the living poor introduces an entirely unseen world in the American economy. As a consumer, we witness many of the workers who earn minimum wage, and while their private lives are talked about, Ehrenreich's first-person view introduces an entirely different view in comparison with the many statistics about the poor's lack of income. Furthermore, her success proves that with hard work and dedication, everyone has the potential to succeed. Her overall argument in support for the living poor is increased as a result of experience. Most individuals will never experience the life of the living poor; therefore, Ehrenreich's account presents the issue of poverty into a whole new social class. As for myself, I truly believe that the majority of the citizens living…
Low-wage earners are often subjected to economic discrimination and marginalization on the basis of their age, race, education level, and socioeconomic status (The Leadership Conference, 2001). Unequal and unsustainable pay serves as an infringement of civic equality, as it fosters subjugation and oppression. Workers who earn minimum wage experience diminished economic freedom, as they encounter lesser opportunity and a decreased quality of life (Brooks,…
In America, the public majority tends to believe that poor people deserve to be in poverty as they are lazy. In reality, the nation’s poor work full-time, sometimes over fifty hours a week, yet still do not earn enough to escape the depths of poverty. Minimum wage is what these individuals earn, as deemed appropriate from the low skill level of the jobs they work. Often the level of incomes received are not made to be living wages and are found to be product of unreasonable systems. Making a living wage in America is unlike the textbook definitions since there are various standards of living within each state that dictate the level. As a result including, an ever-growing population of consumer workers, deskilled jobs, and irrationality caused from McDonaldization, countless individuals, specifically: the uneducated, Blacks, Latinos, and young adults, fall into a class of “working poor”.…
In the United States of America, there is not a federal minimum wage. Some states have their own minimum wage, but can be very low, for example, Georgia’s minimum wage is only $5.15 an hour. There are also four states that do not require a minimum wage. People are struggling to a day to day basis with putting food on the table for their family. If our country had a required federal minimum wage of $15 an hour, there would be fewer people who will struggle financially.…
When she was working at the hospital she read the news paper and it talked about the horrible conditions…
deal of her over the next nine years. She worked a succession of continuous low…
She worked two jobs. One was on the night shift as a nurse, and the other was cleaning houses…
isolated with her child to the small house where she must cook, clean, and care for her…
We know in the world of today, most households have two incomes to maintain the basic everyday needs. We all have worked jobs that paid bare minimum, gave crappy hours along with fatigue. Gilbert and Henslin divided the lower class into the Working Poor and the Underclass (Gilbert The American Class Structure 1998). The Working Poor’s employment is in the service and manual labor and the Underclass relies solely on government aid and has not participate in the workforce.…