Spoon Class Theory

Living on Minimum Wages “I grew up hearing over and over, to the point of tedium, that ‘hard work’ was the secret of success: ‘Work hard and you’ll get ahead’ or ‘It’s hard work that got us where we are.’ No one ever said that you could work hard—harder even than you ever thought possible—and still find yourself sinking ever deeper into poverty and debt” (Ehrenreich 220). Like Ehrenreich says, I am also the one who once believed that working hard is the only key to success, and efforts will never betray us. Wealthy people quite often say that the working poor is the consequence of being lazy; however, as I read the book, Nickel and Dimed, there is absolutely no working poor who tends to be lazy. Inversely, the one who is in the position where …show more content…
A gold spoon represents a person born in a wealthy family who support him/her financially on education and has a power to get him/her employed in a large corporation. On the other hand, a soil spoon represents a person born in a poor family who cannot do any of the above. Maybe Holly is right. We can only be relative to determine wealthy: “If we’re cleaning their house, they’re wealthy” (Ehrenreich 95). However, this does not mean that “[w]e’re nothing to these people” (Ehrenreich 100). Wealthy means wealthy, and poor mean poor; nothing more than that. Nevertheless, we are living in such a dirty materialism nation that the poor people should obey a command from their masters who have the money to rule them. How can we blame our parents that they are not wealthy? A poverty should not be considered as a crime. We should give the working poor more opportunities to overcome the poverty and inherit at least some money to their children not to live in a poverty. If we do not encourage the working poor, they will start not working and rely on the government benefits. Therefore, we might lose labors in a long-term view, and the vicious cycle will become worse. The government might impose more taxes from employers to save people in poverty, and the working poor class will be disappeared and want to become a welfare recipient. The consequence can only be worse if we do not increase …show more content…
However, there are some simple ways we can think of to provide employees something other than just monetary compensation. They are willing to work overtime to make more money, but at the same time, they want to have a rest as well: “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). They are not robots and feel tired as same as other people. We can provide them enough time off to recharge their bodies to prevent any serious illness due to stress and fatigues. Also, if their jobs are in the range of low wages, we can review their performance and working experience and promote them a job that has a higher wage. In this case, we do not have to change the whole wage policy on the particular job and still provide the employee a better pay.
Before the day we cannot find any person who is willing to work, we should provide the working poor a true minimum wage to live like a human being not like a slave. I will sum up my writing by quoting the last phrase of the book: “They are bound to tire of getting so little in return and to demand to be paid what they’re worth. There’ll be a lot of anger when that day comes, and strikes and disruption. But the sky will not fall, and we will all be better off for it in the end”