Analysis Of Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel And Dimed

In my opinion, I feel that the author of “Nickel and Dimed”, Barbara Ehrenreich, had

ethical intentions when making the decision to investigate “poverty” by emerging herself in the

“low-wage lifestyle”. The ethical concern, however, is with her approach. I feel that the way in

which it was conducted could be viewed as degrading to those who do not have an alternative to

this way of living. True, hopeless poverty does not have those “reassuring limits” that Ehrenreich

had the ability to utilize when she was in a position that made her uncomfortable with the

consequences of the poverty she was attempting to study. By keeping her car, she writes, “Yes, I

could have walked more or limited myself to jobs accessible by
Although her job as a maid in Maine was also strenuous, and despite the fact that she also

had a second job, I believe that her experience in Florida was tougher on her because it was her

first attempt at living this lifestyle. By the time she arrived in Maine, I think she had internalized

that much of what she was enduring was the everyday lives of the women who she had gotten to

know throughout her experience and relented to the existence of poverty.

The drastic increase in affluent households using maid services can be explained by a

number of things. According to Ehrenreich, with the influx of women into the workforce,

tensions arose over housework. Once women began working and did not solely rely on their

husband’s wages, women began to expect more from their husbands. When the idea of this

“equal partnership” was not being fulfilled, it caused many disagreements within households.

The maid services “even saved marriages” and took advantage by obtaining contracts from these

homes by capitalizing on this idea, to intervene and solve their problems by eliminating the need

for an argument over housework.

In her statement, “For the first time in my life as a maid, I have a purpose