Summary Of Serving In Florida By Barbara Ehrenreich

Barbara Ehrenreich wonders how americans can afford to survive financially off of just a minimum wage paying job. Ehrenreich decides to go undercover to find out for herself how these americans are barely making ends meat. The first place Ehrenreich goes to is Key West, Florida; she gets a job at a diner and finds a trailer home to live in but soon realizes that working at the diner alone cannot pay for her rent and put food on the table so Ehrenreich gets a second job working as a hotel maid. Soon the fatigue of working two strenuous jobs catches up to her and she decides to quit her two jobs before her first month of being undercover is up. The second city she visits is Portland, Maine.

In the book Nickel and Dimed: On Not Getting By in America, journalist Barbara Ehrenreich goes undercover into the world of minimum wage employees to research how difficult it is to live off of their salary. She splits up the book into three sections where she tackles these jobs in diverse areas to be able to compare her data. In each section Ehrenreich plows through several jobs, sometimes struggling to afford housing and food. She takes these first-hand experiences and compiles them into a book that gives readers an insight to the world of minimum wage workers. Ehrenreich begins her journey by taking time to prepare for the hardships she may face along the way.

“Some who had been successful found themselves unemployed with no benefits (Stephens and Wikstrom 164). Another issue was the fact that while some people were able to maintain their lifestyle up to that point, the minimum wage which was at that time, $5.15 per hour had not been increased between 1997 and 2005. This did not help the low-income families as during this period “…consumer prices have increased between 19 and 20 percent, meaning purchasing power of the dollar received by minimum wage workers has declines significantly” (164). One final issue that helped to turn the success of the Work to Welfare program was the fact that increases in regressive tax and sales tax, as well as state and federal government fees “fell heavily on those at the bottom of the income scale.”

In the book of Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich presents to readers an overall perspective on how the unskilled women to be forced to join the labor market after the American welfare reform on 1998. Interestingly, this presentation is actually based on Ehrenreich’s practical experiences. She participates into the lifestyle of the poor in the low-wage labor market in order to experiences and researches that living style as an “undercover journalist”. Moreover, Ehrenreich wants to find an answer for the question if she could survive and maintain her living with low wage just like the way “four million women about to be booted into the labor market by welfare reform going to make it on $6 or$7 an hour” (Nickel and Dimed, pg.1). In fact, three

Make a copy of this document and put in your AP Lang folder: After reading Serving in Florida by Barbara Ehrenreich, answer the following questions and submit into the Schoology Submission box before 7:30am on Tuesday January 17th. NO NEED TO PRINT YOUR RESPONSES. 1) Do you think Ehrenreich’s forays into the world of poverty were ethical? Ehrenreich’s methods of experiencing poverty were definitely ethical. She simply applied for certain jobs, worked at those jobs, and then provided a narrative that described her overall working experience.

The solution to the minimum-wage problem that haunts American workers in the 21st century is to strive for lower everyday expenses rather than for a higher minimum wage. The renowned author Barbara Ehrenreich, in her informational novel Nickel and Dimed, tells the story of how she performed a social experiment by working several minimum wage jobs, while living a lifestyle of a low-wage worker. In her novel, Ehrenreich concludes that minimum wage workers “in good health” can “barely support [themselves]” (199). Even though Ehrenreich earned “$1039 in one month,” at the end of the month she only had “$22 left over” as she had to spend “$517” on food and gas, and “$500” to pay her rent (197). As evident, Ehrenreich’s wage is not the cause of her

From the title “The Minimum-Wage War”, it may seem that Ehrenreich’s recollection of minimum wage work may not be as accurate as someone who faces the true pressures of working two minimum wage jobs a week; However, because she put herself in the same conditions, she created a credible experiment. Ehrenreich’s experiment was derived from the question “could match income to expenses, as the truly poor attempt to do every day.” She worked in various minimum wage environments, such as restaurants, a hotel, a cleaning service, and a nursing home. By working under the harsh conditions of minimum wage work, Ehrenreich discovered the difficulties of managing living expenses with such a limited budget. Despite the harsh nature of the work, there are still skeptics who feel that raising the minimum wage will reduce the number of jobs available to minimum wage workers.

Nickel and Dimed On (Not) Getting By in America, is the factual narrative of Barbara Ehrenreich’s venture to completely immerse herself in the life of a minimum wage worker. Through her experiment Ehrenreich set out to prove that the average worker can’t “make it on $6 or $7 an hour (1)” in this country; and with her hands on research, she defends while simultaneously proving that the reason so many people are stuck in the lower end of the economy is not because they are lazy or unskilled, but because the jobs they can acquire rarely pay enough to surpass the annual poverty levels. Ehrenreich's use of statistics, examples and the general tone she phrases her rhetorical questions with enlightens her audience of just how hard it is to get by

My father used to always say that, “If you got Congress in a room together, they’d talk about everything but what was actually important,” and it’s on a similar note that William Finnegan, a longtime contributor to the New Yorker, begins his piece. In Demonizing the Minimum Wage, which first appears in the online version of the New Yorker magazine, Finnegan dives head first into his argument, claiming that the federal minimum wage, which as of September 2014 was $7.25 an hour, is simply not enough. Through the implementation of logical references, subtle emotional appeals and several credible sources, William Finnegan efficiently argues that the current federal minimum wage is too low. Throughout his article, Finnegan uses several logical

Minimum wage is a topic that controls many individual’s lives in today’s society. Many individuals believe minimum wage should be raised to help families get out of poverty. In the documentary, 30 Days, two individuals set out to live in the poverty world. They left everything they owned at home and moved across America to start out fresh. Similar to 30 Days, the individual in “Serving in Florida” moved to Florida to try to experience poverty alone.

David K. Shipler’s The Working Poor: Invisible in America describes the low-income Americans face. He notes that they are both impacted by the social, political and economic environment in which they live and a cause of their own poverty. Shipler makes his point through conversations with the working poor, their employers and those who are trying to help them break the cycle of poverty. He successfully argues that the solution to the problems faced by this group is that everyone needs to work together, government, private organizations and the working poor themselves, to change what is wrong with the system. But while his point is valid, the book, which claims to be objective in terms of its politics is not, and Shipler’s “us” versus “them”

When I Went To Florida I went to Florida after 4th grade in the summer. When we went to Florida, Jaxon my sisters, brother came with us. The night before we left he stayed at my house. When we left the next morning we left at 3:00 A.M. While we were on our way we both had to sit in the very back of the car because my sisters came with us. The ride there was not fun at all.

As fast food workers continue to clamor for a hike in wages to $15 dollars an hour. Ed Renesi, the former president and chief executive officer of McDonalds USA, argues in his Op-Ed article published on Forbes.com “The Ugly Truth About a Minimum Wage” that a $15 minimum wage will wipe “out thousands of entry-level opportunities for people.” Renesi begins his op-ed by building his credibility on the issue through his knowledge in insider information on the business practices of McDonalds USA and successfully employs strong emotional appeals to further convince his audience to see his side of the argument. Ed Renesi sets the state of his argument by talking about the Service Employees International Union, a union that has recently expanded

At her job, she always as to be occupied with a task, even though her manager does nothing all day. Conditions for the employees are unfair. Their break room is disgusting and it is reminded to them that it is a privilege, as well as their lockers can be searched anytime, they’re not allowed to gossip, and new and possibly current employees will be tested for drugs. Ehrenreich has trouble keeping up with her payments with the wages she is earning and can not imagine how her coworkers are able to live like this, however she later learns that they are also barely making it by. She decides she will need to gain a second job and becomes a waitress for another restaurant, Jerry’s(not its actual name).

Ehrenreich uses imagery, diction, pathos and logos to strategize her story and make it more appealing to the readers who are higher income people wanting them to understand how difficult low income life can be. Ehrenreich thoroughly illustrates her experience at the Hearthside using a metaphor. “Picture a fat person's hell, and i don't mean a place with no food. Instead there is everything you might eat if eating had no bodily consequences….The kitchen is a cavern, a stomach leading to the lower intestine that is the garbage and dishwashing area.”