Essay 1 Ehrenreich wrote the book Nickel and Dimmed during a time of relative prosperity, which revealed a stark contrast between the lives of the upper and lower classes. This contrast, as seen in the lives of low-wage workers, is caused by a minimum wage that is nearly impossible to live on, and the lives of these low-wage workers gets increasingly worse during times of economic recessions. As mentioned in the conclusion of the book, during these times of economic recessions, the pricing on housing skyrockets due to the wealthy buying all the homes and the poor not being able to decent housing. In turn, the quality of life in the lower class dwindles almost to nothing because of their low-wage jobs. The types of jobs that are available