The last part of Nickel and Dimed is the evaluation. Barbara Ehrenreich grades herself and says that she was average because even though she used a lot of concentration and skills that she didn't know she would use, she recieved very little encouragement or compliments from her coworkers. She says that the unskilled jobs are both mentally and physically challenging. Ehrenreich finds that the markets are becoming extremely competitive. She realizes that the pay that hourly workers are making isn't enough and the rise of rent is taking away the opportunities for lower income families to have places to live. Low income homes in cities are disappearing forcing families to live in small hotels or apartments. Employers do whatever they can to keep from having to give raises in wages. She just felt as if the people in the lower 20% of the economy were treated so poorly that they flt as if they couldn't ever find a better job.
Overall I thought this book had its good moments as well as its bad moments. Mostly I feel like it just wasn't realistic enough because Barbara had a car as well as a savings account where she could get money out if she needed too. Also with having a car, she had way more possibilities for her to get around then most poor people because they have problems with transportation. I do think that some of the information she found about the low wage jobs helped me to really understand how hard it would be if I had to live like that. It was also interesting to see how bad the jobs really were and all the hidden costs that can come with having a low wage job.
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