After reading about Barbara Ehrenreigh’s plight in Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, living as a low-wage worker is almost impossible, especially if issues are present that will impact work. For the amount of money earned, a bare bones lifestyle was extremely difficult to meet. Her standard of living, or “the level of wealth available to acquire material goods and comforts to maintain a particular socioeconomic style” (Griffiths et al., 2015, p. 202), decreased notably from her former occupation, especially when she was working with the maids, suffering rashes and pains. In addition, her income, defined as “the money a person earns from work or investments” (Griffiths et al., 2015, p. 201) left her with a strict budget that left her at the brink of disaster. Throughout all of her jobs, she encountered troubles with management, as they often mistreated their employees, especially in Jerry’s through a manager called B.J. and also in The Maids by a manager named Ted. When she completed her investigation, she realized that living costs were becoming too high relative to wages. Also, she found that the economic boom of the 1990s had little effect on the wages of low-wage …show more content…
Changing her jobs and moving allowed her to experience multiple types of low-wage work and also allowed her to assess how different sociodemographic factors would change work. For instance, she started off in Key West, Florida as a waitress, but then moved to Portland, Maine. She chose Portland due to the high proportion of Caucasians and more demand for labor, allowing for more openings. Later, she chose Minnesota because of its good welfare policies. As a result of finding work in different locations, she realizes that employers tend to try and keep wages low through a plethora of obstacles such as drug tests, allowing employees to talk to one another and