Barbara Ehrenreich′s Investigative Journalism, ″Nickle-and-Dimed”
What were your reactions to Barbara Ehrenreich′s investigative journalism, ″Nickle-and-Dimed?″ As you formulate your post, consider some of the following: what was Ehrenreich′s purpose? Was she biased? What questions was she exploring and what answers did she find? Can you relate to Ehrenreich′s experience/experiment? Her original article was published in 1999: Are things better, worse, or about the same today? Post a well-developed paragraph and respond substantially to one peer for full credit.
Ehrenreich’s step to highlight the struggles that the workers who earn a minimum wage undergo to make ends meet is among the boldest in the United States aimed at creating class awareness. She skillfully acquires firsthand information through disguise and getting directly involved in the lower end jobs. Ehrenreich purposes to get a good understanding of how working for the minimum wage feels like, how the workers act and how their employers treat them. Her exploration raises a big question on the class matters: why a modern civilized nation would still be bound with the class struggles. In her exploration, she notes that the non-skilled jobs are equally demanding as the skilled ones. Offering a minimum wage for unskilled jobs is thus unfair as they require a lot of efforts and are associated with numerous risks. I do not think that Ehrenreich is in any way biased in her experiment as she assumes the identity of the oppressed in the society. She triggers the employers to act consistently as they would act towards a typical low-income earner. She perfectly fits in her assumed role and stays focused and loyal to her plans. Anyone can relate to Ehrenreich’s account whether they are victims or not. Once in a while, we bump into people working for a low income. At times, we mistreat them not knowing that they have already experienced unbearable pressure from their status. The society ought to be more generous to the people working for the minimum wage as normal functioning cannot occur in their absence.
Response Post Example
The post starts by categorically stating that there is nothing surprising about Ehrenreich’s account. This is indisputable owing to the fact that class struggles are common knowledge. The post ends with an outstanding observation outlining that America is now a worse place for the low-income earners compared to the time the article was authored (20 years ago). However, I disagree with the response on the matter of Ehrenreich being biased. She only felt like stating that she was only doing an experiment which she never did. Anyone experimenting on such sensitive matters would also feel the same. I do not think this would make her biased as even those who work within the minimum wage dislike their state. The post makes two contradictory points at the end. The author of the post says that he/she cannot necessarily relate to the experiences yet he/she again claims that the experiences are not surprising.