Hardworking and Struggling

Nickel and Dimed written by Barbara Ehrenreich provides an insight to those who work in blue collared professions, but still seem to be struggling to make enough money to provide for their day to day lives. This article, which seems to be an autobiography of some sort, follows a newly hired housecleaner in a large corporation, and how she ensued extremely hard work conditions, like following strict rules and dealing with difficult clients. Her main purpose to get across was the fact that many people work hard at their jobs, but still seem to find themselves impoverished. With Ehrenreich’s opinion being stated, I seem to agree with her on the basis of poverty being seen so differently by every person. A lot of our viewpoints of poverty are of those sleeping on the street are there for their own wrongdoings, rather than just being dealt a deal of misfortunes. Not only does she explain her own misfortunes with acquiring enough money to buy some food to fulfill her throughout the day, but she gives an insight on how her co-workers also struggle with the ability to provide for their own needs as well for their families. Her main purpose for producing this reading was to give those who are not in a situation where they wondered if they were going to be able to scrape enough money up for food, while working a less than minimum waged job, an insight to this hard life. It is clear that Ehrenreich has a strong feeling about blue-collared jobs and the impoverished lifestyle that can still go along with it. From my point of view, this reading allows us to think of all the different types of poverty that goes around us. Poverty ranging from living in the streets to someone in a house but barely making ends meet