Discrimination definitely shaped Ehrenreich’s story. She had many advantages compared to others who actually live in this life style. One of her advantages was her race, another big advantage was not having any children. All these play a role in her story/ experience. She becomes aware at the end of her experiment that the living situation of minimum wage earners are nothing like those of upper class, such as herself.
Ehrenreich before this experiment, was a middle/high class worker who had no idea what it was to be a minimum wage worker. She did however know the stereotypes quite well and felt a need to include them in her story.Ehrenreich starts off chapter two with “I chose Maine for its whiteness”(Ehrenreich 51). Why did she start it
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She would need to have enough money not only to sustain herself but to sustain 2+ people. There would be a need for childcare, which is not a cheap price even for middle-class families. Additionally, the child's health and nutritional needs could affect the authors maintainability for the job. In order to keep a job you must also always be there on time and everyday if she was to miss a day due to having to take care of her child, they do not care for those excuses, they have plenty of other people to take their spot. Colleen, a single mother of two, says: “I don't mind, really, because I guess I'm a simple person, and I don't want what they have. I mean, it's nothing to me. But what I would like is to be able to take a day off now and then…if I had to…and still be able to buy groceries the next day.” (Ehrenreich 119)It is clear that Ehrenreich does not struggle with what Colleen does, Colleen worries about not being able to get groceries the next day, and would really want to have a day off. Ehrenreich on the other hand does not struggle with that, and on top of it, she can have a day off now and then once the experiment is over and in her transfer of job to