“The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. A full-time minimum wage employee earns $15,080 annually. In 2012, the poverty threshold for a single person was $11,945. For a family of four with two children, it was $22,283” -University of California-Davis.
In Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, Barbara Ehrenreich tells a powerful and tenacious story of the day to day survival of low-income workers in America. Her story transcends the disparity that exists between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat society and uncovers the dark truths that lie hidden beyond the popular portrayal of the “American dream”. The book gives the reader an insiders’ view into the world of the proletariat society, a peculiar place to which majority …show more content…
The first evidence that rebuts the whole notion of the “American Dream” lies within the first chapter of the book when the author meets Gail, a mature woman, possibly in her fifties who works as a waitress at the Hearthside. “Gail, who is ‘looking like fifty’, age wise, but moves so fast that she can alight in one place and then another without apparently being anywhere between.” (Page 20) and “Joan, the svelte fortyish hostess, who turns out to be a hostess…” (Page 21). In the first quote, it is clearly analyzed that Gail is a woman who had years of experience doing the things she does in the restaurant to the point where she efficiently completes all her task flawlessly. In the second quote, there is another mature co-worker, who is working as a hostess who is portrayed to be also well experienced based on her knowledge of the system in the hotel. The similarities between these two women are that they are both have obvious evidence of years of experience under their belt, yet they have both been oppressed by the system with no possibilities of ever advancing up the hierarchy into a better life. Once you are in the life of the working class, getting out becomes a problem, and as we see in many if not all of the instances where Ehrenreich has come …show more content…
Many people, millions, in fact, work seven days a week and at least eight hours a day. Working a few months with zero days off can damage even the most hard working individuals both physically and mentally. Several times throughout the book she wonders at what point does some kind of permanent injury of the spirit set in? In many ways, the working class has to feel like they are fighting a battle they simply cannot win. After all, how many days in a row can a person work as hard as possible and still find herself without enough money to truly live? “she whispers the pain is really wicked now. ‘You can’t work,’ I say. ‘You hear me, Holly? You can’t work on this ankle. Still, all she agrees to do is call Ted from the phone in the kitchen, and I stand there listening to her apologize weepily to him…” (Page 110). Regardless of how tired or injured these courageous workers may be, due to their tenuous economic situation they cannot afford to take a day off of work for either physical or psychological reasons. This eventually puts a toll on their bodies, and eventually they break, causing them to either retire as a working class or continue on with health hazardous problems, and if they can no longer work, they cannot get paid. Either way, the dream is lost. In the end, these people are always striving for something, and as evidence points to us, most are not sufficiently