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Summary Of Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel And Dimed

1141 Words5 Pages

In the book Nickel and Dimed, the author Barbara Ehrenreich who is a reporter, but she describes a cruel fact of the American low wage workers’ life after she experienced poverty. She illustrates a series of stories about the poor life of low wage workers from different aspects, such as food, shelter and health insurance. She had been worked as three kinds of jobs in three diverse places, but the common point of these three jobs is low salary, which means that the money she earns was not enough for living. The author also mentioned some of her coworkers’ life, the life of low wage workers seems like a circle, it is hard for them to escape, it repeats all the time, nobody helps them to get out of the circle. To find out which obstacle keeps the poor poor, we should to know what kind of characteristics that the low wage workers had. Here are some …show more content…

Most low wage jobs were very physical and included lot of labor and they do not provide health care anymore. I had been listened a news that in order to walk into the emergency room, the hospital will charge you $300. That is absolutely ridiculous. Medication and aid has an even price. For example, the people in Nickel and Dimed are having a hard time with paying for these extra things. Gail takes estrogen pills to help her migraines but since she doesn’t have health insurance she is forced to pay $9 per pill. It is a tough decision whether to buy the $9 pill or suffer her terrible migraines.( page 21) Similarly, after getting hurt on the foot, Marianne’s boyfriend lost his job as a roofer because he missed so much time, however he could not afford the prescribed antibiotic. ( page 22). According to this, although low wage workers pay all their efforts to earn money, but they spend much more money which made them tangled in “the poverty circle” and hard to

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Ehrenreich Key West Rhetorical Analysis

365 Words | 2 Pages

Thesis: I believe that Ehrenreich’s thesis is that no matter how hard you work or how chipper you act, it is nearly impossible to make a living for oneself in minimum wage conditions such as those of her coworkers. Narration: Narration is present on page 765 where through the narrator we are told Gail’s story about how her husband died and her what has led up to her current situation. Report: Paragraph 2 is an example of report writing where she details the types of housing in the area and the possible houses she can afford because she is being illustrative and informational about the topic of real estate in Key West. Analysis: The section on pages 771-772 is an analysis because she is breaking down the housing situations of her coworkers based upon her prediction of their salaries.

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In a New York Times article, “Too Poor to Make the News,” author Barbara Ehrenreich focuses on the impact the recession has caused to the lives of the working poor. She begins her article by describing how the newly group, known as Nouveau poor, have to give up valuables where as the working poor have to give up housing, food, and prescription medicines. Ehrenreich’s purpose is to inform her readers who are blessed enough not to suffer like the working poor. Barbara Ehrenreich’s article examines the impacts the recession has on the lives of the working poor, by demonstrating pathos, and makes readers aware of the sufferings the poor have to face. Barbara Ehrenreich examines the aspects that are impacting the working poor from the recession.

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Nickel And Dimed Rhetorical Strategies

381 Words | 2 Pages

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.

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1318 Words | 6 Pages

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Michael Harington's How I Discovered The Truth About Poverty

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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.”

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1053 Words | 5 Pages

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1012 Words | 5 Pages

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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.

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1170 Words | 5 Pages

The Truth About Poverty “Poverty is like punishment for a crime you didn't commit” this quote was said by Mahatma Gandhi and it relates so well with this article “It is Expensive To Be Poor”, answer the question yourself, Is it expensive to be poor? This article is titled like that to get the audience's attention early and have them thinking ahead of reading. The author Barbara Ehrenreich is building a pre thought when she does this which helps support her claim. “It is Expensive To Be Poor” by Barbara Ehrenreich is an article posted on “The atlantic” “which is where you can find your current news and analysis on politics, business, culture, and technology”. Knowing what “The Atlantic” offers for readers this gives Ehrenreich a detailed look at who she is writing to.

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