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From Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America: Millions of Americans work full-time, year round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised a job - any job - could be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper on six to seven dollars an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered as a woefully inexperienced homemaker returning to the workforce. Your assignment is to virtually recreate Ehrenreich's experiment. You will choose one of the three cities in which she tried to live and work. You will look for a job and a place to live. You will buy food and clothing, and gas for your car. After you've done your best to "get by," you'll read Part I of Ehrenreich's book, answer multiple choice questions about the reading, and write a first-person narrative essay, in which you describe your experience, and make comparisons to that of Ehrenreich. |
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