Describe one of the social issues presented in Nickel and Dimed. What is the author's point of view about this issue? What is your point of view? INTRODUCTION: [Hook] (a quote from outside the book about how hard menial jobs are and how hard it is to get enough money). [Introduce the book] Barbara Ehrenreich, the author of Nickel and Dimed, can identify with the majority of people who struggle to pay off expensive rent bills with their low income. She recognizes that single women with no kids and working two jobs find it difficult to make ends meet. Ehrenreich struggles to find and maintain energy throughout the day while working a job that pays $6 an hour. Barbara Ehrenreich, the author of Nickel and Dimed, can identify with the majority of people who struggle to pay off expensive rent bills with their low income. She recognizes that single women with no kids and working two jobs find it difficult to make ends meet. Ehrenreich struggles to find and maintain energy throughout the day while working a job that pays $6 an hour. Ehrenreich finds that rent “is well beyond [her] reach” (Ehrenreich, 13). She sees that …show more content…
These workers aren’t being paid nearly enough as they should be paid for all the hard work that they do. I think they should be given more flexibility in the work area and that their employers should be nicer to them. Like for example how one of the people that Barbara met during her job working as a maid, she was not feeling well the entire time and was still working her hardest without getting any breaks to get better. These workers aren’t even getting paid to at least eat a proper meal or to find good housing to live in. If someone who was raising a child alone, it would be extremely hard and a low paying job that only paid about $6 an hour would not be nearly enough to live off
I was surprised too of how much clothe they wash for so little pay that they receive for it. I understand why they did the strike it was unfair to get pay that they were bing pay. When they strike “They sought higher pay, respect and autonomy over their work and established a uniform rate at $1 per dozen pounds of wash” (Atlanta’s Washerwomen Strike). Now a days it does not seem like a lot of money but back then it was better than what they were getting pay. They deserve better pay because what they do its hard work.
Pathos dominates the article when Ehrenreich allows her nephews mother in law, grandchildren, and daughter to move into her house. The situation focuses on pathos because in Ehrenreich’s personal story she includes that “Peg, was, like several million other Americans, about to lose her home to foreclosure” (338). She is effective in her writing by appealing to the readers’ emotions through visual concepts and personal experiences. When I read the article, I felt emotional because the working poor are not fortunate to know if they will have a house or food the next day. I agree with Ehrenreich in which the poor are as important as the wealthy group who get more recognition.
Carelessly, the working middle and the high class people always forget about what the poor working class has to do in life to survive. In a passage from the novel, The Working Poor Invisible In America, David Shipler compares the poor working class wages to the amount of food they are able to buy. Shipler is able to creatively inform the audience using description, exemplification, and cause and effect what the life a poor working class citizen does everyday. David Shipler shapes an image in the minds of all of his readers with his selective word choice. As a result of not having the money to pay for food, parents are forced to let their children starve, and as a result those children start looking “listless”.
Homelessness in The Glass Castle In the 1960s, according to American Civil Liberties Union, 20% of the United States population were homeless, and shunned from the rest of society because of stereotypes. The Glass Castle is a memoir written by Jeannette Walls, to tell the story of her life growing up as a homeless child with an alcoholic father and an artistic mother. Her memoir is a story about relationships, and how the outside world influences them. In The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, homeless people are marginalized as uneducated, reckless and mentally unstable.
In the article “How I Discovered the Truth about Poverty” Barbara Ehrenreich gives her view in poverty and explains why she think Michael Harington’s book “The Other American” gives a wrong view on poverty. She explained that Harrington believes that the poor thought and felt differently and what divides the poor was their different “culture of poverty.” Ehrenreich goes on to explain on how the book that became a best seller caused so many bad stereotypes on the poor that by the Reagan era poverty was seen as “bad attitudes” and “faulty lifestyles” and not by the lack of jobs or low paying jobs. And they also viewed the poor as “Dissolute, promiscuous, prone to addiction and crime, unable to “defer gratification,” or possibly even set an alarm clock.”
During the progressive era our country faced many problems. The rise of substantial businesses caused industrial problems. Women suffrage, alcohol, child labor, and safety issues caused social problems. The necessitation of citizens in government decisions also caused political problems. Progressives were people who wanted to solve all of these quandaries.
No Nickels or Dimes To Spare In the book, Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich writes the story, “Serving in Florida.” She describes her experience living as an undercover waitress when in reality she’s a journalist for culture and politics with a doctorate in biology. Ehrenreich experiences trying to survive on multiple low income jobs to understand what it is like to be in their shoes instead of being apart of the higher middle class.
Nickel and Dimed Analysis: Minorities vs Majority vs Socioeconomics In Ehrenreich’s classic “Nickel and Dimed: On (not) getting by in America,” the protagonist opens up the dialogue with admitting that she picked out her job out of laziness (Ehrenreich, 1). With the setting in Key West, Florida, the main character being Ehrenreich herself, decides to experiment with the possibilities of existing as a person on the lower terminal of the socioeconomic ladder. For her experiment, she lives in the lower rung of the ladder, becoming a waitress (Ehrenreich, 10). Based in 1996, the novel is investigating the benefits and effects of the 1996 welfare reform bill, which was considered a jugular stab to the spirit of social reform and government assistance to the hapless.
She uses her own experiences as well as television shows to support her claim throughout her essay. Hooks establishes her credibility quite quickly because she was an individual that experienced the misinterpretations first hand. She uses many different techniques to establish the reader’s attention. The intended readers for her essay are individuals whom are making false assumptions about poor people and families and for the poor themselves. She hopes by drawing light upon the topic that things will change for the
From the beginning of Nickel and Dimed and Scratch Beginnings, the question posed is the same: “Does the American Dream still exist in the modern America?” And while liberal and conservative commentators will openly contradict each other and argue the viability of making it from almost nothing in this modern age, all that is hearsay. Ehrenreich and Shepard, the authors of Nickel and Dimed and Scratch Beginnings respectively, tried to go beyond what the commentators were doing and prove whether the American dream was still alive by embarking on their own separate case studies. And while, it is imaginable that anyone can rise from rags to as, Shepard stated “[to] slightly better rags,” the how to do this is the item in question. The American
The American dream is a dream of a land in which one can prosper with ambition and hard work. This idea has created many illusions for some because in reality the American dream is proven to be something that is rarely achieved. No individual is guaranteed success or destined for failure, but it is apparent that women, people of color, and those born into poverty will face greater obstacles than others, despite being a greater part of the American population. An author that tackles the issue of class in the United States is Gregory Mantsios. In his essay, “Class in America-2009”, Mantsios aims to prove that class affects people’s lives in drastic ways.
Jack Nguyen AP English 3 30, July 2015 Nickel and Dimed Rhetorical Strategies and Notes Thesis: Ehrenreich’s personal use of varied rhetorical strategies allowed her to divulge the working conditions and struggles of the poverty-stricken class to the readers in order to provoke them to realize that something has to be done about poverty.. First Body: What: Allusion Pg. 2, Logos Pg. 37. How & Effect: Ehrenreich uses these personal, rhetorical strategies based on her experiences as a low-wage worker in the poor working class. The effect is that Ehrenreich is able to show the readers the conditions in which the impoverished work in and the daily obstacles that they face in life; also there is an appeal to logic and a reference of a poverty idiom. Why: Ehrenreich is deliberately using these rhetorical strategies to incite the readers about the fact that changes need to be done to poverty because it is a detrimental thing to society.
The American Dream is so essential to our country as it is an honor to reach your goals and make it a reality. The American Dream is the national ethos that people’s lives would be better and more abundant with many opportunities. The American Dream was more accessible to attain back in the days, however, changed over the years. Although the “American Dream” is still possible, many people, minorities are affected by the lack of improvement in social mobility in our society. The American Dream is still alive by being able to live a middle-class lifestyle and by obtaining it through perseverance and hard-work.
The book entitled Nickel and Dimed written by Ehrenreich in 2010, which she investigates the issue surrounding poverty and human dilemma of how to survive as low wage earners. She begins her quest by obtaining shelter and apply for numerous jobs that result in a job paying $2.43 an hours plus tips. Ehrenreich feels incapable and incompetent in her new job, as physical and emotional demand work; however, she admits to have form a bond with her coworkers. She also acknowledges non management personal in the restaurant field can barely survived on their pay rate and will not be able to survive continue working in this field without seeking additional employment as she must if she is going to survive. This bond creates an atmosphere of sharing
Social Problems in Societies Social problems are issues which are considered to affect majority if not all members of a society either directly or indirectly. Whenever people come to live together in a social setting, conflict arises from their differences in opinions regarding political issues, religion, ethnic issues, cultural practices and other health and hygiene issues. In such a situation, we can say a society inevitably develops social problems. The various social issues present today vary from society to society, and as such, we cannot say that all societies face similar social issues.