Nickeled and Dimed

In the years 1998 to 2000, Barbara Ehrenreich writes about her experience working as an undercover writer and showing the difficulties that come with working a minimum wage job in her novel Nickeld and Dimed ; however, in today’s society we are given a much more difficult synopsis if one wants to live off of minimum wage. Compared to the piece by Ehrenreich, living in the United States in our current economic presence contains much higher costs of living, such as food, gasoline, and reasonable housing accommodation. Since the costs of living have changed since 1998, Ehrenreich would find that it would be much more difficult to live in today’s economy due to only slightly higher minimum wage rates, a crash in our society’s real estate, and higher prices for fuel and food. One of the conditions to Barbara Ehrenreich’s experience in working as an undercover writer was to work minimum wage jobs to see if the process was going to be successful. In Nickled and Dimed, it states, “…the prevailing wages running at $6-$7 an hour… According to the National Coalition for the homeless, it took, on average nationwide, an hourly wage of $8.89 to afford a one-bedroom apartment” (Ehrenreich 3). Even in 1998, before a complete rise in real estate prices and gasoline, a one-bedroom apartment was not affordable still. In a report from the Department of Labor in the United States Whitehouse administration, minimum wage was reprted as $7.25 in the year 2009. With minimum wage only changing by a quarter from 1998 to 2009, it would be an even greater challenge to own a small apartment. In the novel, Ehrenreich found that she could not live off of minimum wage without some government issued help and, even so in today’s economy, it would not be possible to live comfortably and would suggest a greater possibility of being homeless. Ehrenreich started thinking the thought of living off minimum wage would be somewhat possible to live by herself, even if a small one-bedroom apartment was