Nickel and Dimed; By Barbara Ehrenreich

A detailed Summary of Nickel and Dimed; By Barbara Ehrenreich


In the book Nickel and Dimed On (not) Getting By in America the author Barbara Ehrenreich, attempts to go under cover as a minimum wage worker. Her primary reason for going under cover is to see if she can "match income to expenses as the truly poor attempt to do everyday."(Ehrenreich 6) Also Ehrenreich makes it extremely clear that her work was not designed to make her "experience poverty."(6) After completing the assignment, which was given to her by an editor, she had planned to write an article about her experience. Her article was meant to reach the community that was financially well off and give them an idea how minimum wage workers deal with everyday life. Ehrenreich's motives gave her the tools to experience poverty from a statistical standpoint, but kept her from experiencing the problems poor people faced when it real


ly mattered, such as going hungry. In addition, on her first attempt in Florida, Ehrenreich found out that the assignment entailed getting close with the low wage workers and feeling their hardships.

During the very first pages of the book, the reader becomes very aware of Ehrenreich's financial situation. She is a well off worker who has not had a minimum wage job since she was 18 years old. That is what makes this book interesting, the fact that the reader is learning of the struggles of the poor just as Ehrenreich had. She portrays each person very well and makes one get to know the people and their different struggles. She does this in addition to finding out if the math works out between minimum wage and housing, bills food etc. Because she goes from the top to the bottom, the first hand experience and flat out shock a

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Approximate Word count = 562
Approximate Pages = 2 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Miscellaneous

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