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Nickel and Dimed

 

            Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich, is a great story of how the very author of this book wants to know what it truly is like to be a part of the working poor class, so she becomes part of the working poor class. Working seven dollar an hour jobs, going from place to place, city to city, she learns of how there is injustice happening with the people that she works with. From Florida to Minneapolis Minnesota, she realizes that the working poor class is not completely to blame, but that some of them are incapable of getting out this class.
             In the book, when Ehrenreich travels to Portland Maine she gets a job as a maid in a national housecleaning chain where she sees firsthand, just a taste of injustice happening to the working poor class. One account of this was with one of Ehrenreich's coworkers who had a serious injury, which affects her work, but she feels that she has to keep on working despite the injury. In this coworker's life, it is either work through the injury or not be able to make rent, and get kicked out of her apartment and be back on the streets. This is extremely dangerous, because she can even further injure herself, but she has really no choice in the matter, she needs the money and this is where she can get it, so she is forced to go this road. It seems unbelievable that millions of people live like this in the United States, and nothing has really been done to help these people.
             Another instance of this can be shown through the crap these workers are forced to go through. With no hope of a better future, these people are in a forever repeating cycle of low paying jobs, which barely get them by or not get them by and they are forced to live in cars or on the streets. Many of us in today's middle class they just need to be motivated. Good luck motivating people that have no hope left, or are just dragged down by this cycle to see any hope at all. They do not need hope, hope is gone to them, they just need love! Love shown to them by someone who truly cares about them, and wants to help, and maybe through this love they will be able to have faith in themselves and have hope once again.


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