Poverty And Homelessness In Nickel And Dimed By Barbara Ehrenreich

At times, society associates poverty and homelessness with people unwilling to work or prosper. Barbara Ehrenreich’s novel, “Nickel and Dimed”, challenges this claim made by many with no knowledge of the lower class. She herself experiences how, even with all the odds in her favor, money from one low paying job is just not enough to live. Ehrenreich uses statistics, humor, personal experience, emotional language, and worker’s experience to prove that it is not possible for someone to afford life’s necessities, in America, solely with one low income job. Particularly, Ehrenreich uses facts from outside sources to support her ideas. For instance, she explains that the median pay for a maid was 223 dollars a week, which is below poverty level for a four person household (Ehrenreich 61). Also, she cites that 20% of homeless people are employed either full or part time (Ehrenreich 26). Overall these facts tell the audience that having a job doesn't always mean that one can afford a place to live. This proves Ehrenreich’s …show more content…
First, Ehrenreich explains, “ Gail is sharing a room… but rent would be impossible alone…” (Ehrenreich 25-26). Here she shows that even though some of these people have more than one job, rent is hard to pay. Also she worked with a young women in a house cleaning service that could not afford to pay 89 cents for a soda (Ehrenreich 78). This proves that the pay of one job is just too low for the amount of work these people have to do. Lastly, one coworker talked about the life of the rich and said, “… I don’t want what they have, But what I would like is to be able to take a day off now and then… and still be able to buy groceries the next day”(Ehrenreich 119). These examples of people who live a life with a low income job fortifies the authors claim. The reader also gets a view into their lives making the audience understand that 2 jobs is necessary for the lower