Terkel And Dimed: A Comparative Analysis

Work for most people is lifelong. Therefore this argument is significant because it involves all Americans. The only difference is some have harder jobs than others. Although Terkel’s Working and Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed are both about work, the way each portray the working class, their purpose of writing, and their attitudes toward the working class are very different. I tend to favor Terkel’s view on the working class more than Ehrenreich. However, I understand Ehrenreich is not intending for me to be the audience and is successful at accomplishing a raise of the minimum wage. The question is which is more important to the individual the amount of money earned or the pride of a job well done.
The first difference between these two readings is the way each author portrays the poor working class. In Terkel’s piece he interviews real working class people. Terkel also recognizes them as people who work hard. Unlike Ehrenreich, Terkel believes the working class strives to be valued and remembered. As Terkel states in his …show more content…
Unlike Terkel, Ehrenreich thinks the working class people struggle because they do not get paid enough for their work. Ehrenreich tries to show this by doing an experiment to see if she can survive on minimum wage. Ehrenreich does interact with real working class people and shares their struggles throughout the book. However, Ehrenreich does not seem committed to what she is doing because she is only stuck in the working class temporary, not permanently. Unlike Terkel, Ehrenreich is not writing to the working class. Instead Ehrenreich is writing about the working class in a way which builds the book up for those who are not poor. Ehrenreich is mainly concerned about writing to the politicians and other higher ups to help get the minimum wage increased for the working class. In fact Ehrenreich is successful at raising the minimum wage from $5.15 to