Barbara Ehrenreich has an idea for a book, to go undercover and see how a person can live on six or seven dollars an hour. She starts in Florida at a restaurant called "Hearthside" working as a waitress at only $2.43 an hour plus tips. She discovers that most of her coworkers either live with their parents, boyfriends or in hotel rooms and she herself lives in a small apartment. In order to pay her rent, she takes another job at a restaurant named "Jerry's" as a waitress and works from eight in the morning to ten at night. Barbara decides to quit at hearthside at work only at Jerry's, and moves out of her apartment and rents a trailer in a trailer park for $1,100 so she will be closer to her job. She gets another job as a housekeeper at a hotel and is paid $6.10 an hour. On her last day in Florida she leaves her job and continues on to Maine. Barbara works two jobs in Portland, a dietary aide at a nursing home for $7 an hour and as a maid for $6.65 an hour. She works at the nursing home only on the weekends and helps serve the elderly their food. During the week, she works as a maid with 4 or 5 other woman cleaning rich peoples homes. During her time as working as a maid she hurts her back and many other parts of her body from cleaning all day, and does the work of one of her coworkers after she hurts her foot. On her last day in Portland she explains to her coworkers what she doing this for and leaves town. Barbara travels to Minneapolis and the last city she will be working in. A friend has let her Barbara borrow her apartment while she is out of town. Barbara starts looking for a job the next day and is quickly offered a job at Wal-Mart. After working at Wal-Mart she hates it and nearly creates a union for the workers. Barbara is unable to find affordable housing and returns to her old life with a sense of failure.
Mission.
Barbara Ehrenreich's mission was simple; to give up all the things she has earned including money and find out firsthand how a person can live on a $7 an hour salary.
