Nickled and Dimed

Paper Summary:

This paper reviews and critiques the Barbara Ehrenreich book "Nickled and Dimed in America" about people working at low paying jobs. The paper summarizes the book, which follows Ehrenreich as she takes on a variety of minimum wage jobs across America. Then the paper discusses other literary reviews and criticisms of the book. The paper concludes with the author's personal appraisal of "Nickled and Dimed in America", which is that given America's competitive, free-enterprise economy, there is little expectation that anything will change.

From the Paper:

"Barbara Ehrenreich's book shows clearly that the unskilled working people in America are at or near the poverty level. She asks two pertinent questions right off the bat: "How does anyone live on the wages available to the unskilled (and) How in particular....were the roughly four million women about to be booted into the labor market by welfare reform going to make it on $6 or $7 an hour?" (Ehrenreich 2001 1) Then answers, as we read the book is "not very well". When she concentrates on the plight of women, she becomes somewhat militant (and no wonder, given the subjects she interviews). For example, a fortyish hostess tells her: "Men run everything- we don't have a chance unless we stick together" (p. 21) As she tells about the restaurant where she worked, she more than proves her point- with the manager literally sneering at the employees in a "must attend" meeting. However, when the author walks out of that Florida job, because, as she put it, her "legs have lost interest (p. 48) she does not have to worry where her next rent check is coming from, or any of the other problems of her fellow workers- male and female in that restaurant."

More papers on Nickled and Dimed:

• Book Review # 98251 : "Nickel and Dimed"
• Analytical Essay # 16645 : "Scrubbing in Maine"
• Analytical Essay # 39590 : "The "Disappearance" of the Unwanted Individual"

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