New Book: Nickel and Dimed

     I just started Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich yesterday.  So far it is pretty good and I am learning a lot from it.  In this book the author talks about her experience living in poverty in an experiment that she conducted.  She is telling the story of living in everyday poverty life.  It is a real eye opener.  I just finished the part about living in poverty in Key West and it is brutal.  I would never be able to live in the type of conditions that she is living in.  I would never do this type of experiment either.
   
     She has been jumping around from one job to another in the book, but the thing that surprises me is the sheer amount of research that she put into the book.  It is amazing.  She included this nugget of info that 4 percent of men and 2 percent of women hold two full time jobs.  This is amazing because the author of this book tried it and failed dismally.  I would never be able to hold two full time jobs at the same time.  Also, not only in factories, but in restaurants too the conditions and rights are terrible.  Until April of 1998, there was no federally required right to bathroom breaks for employees.  This is terrible because they were denying one of the most basic rights of being able to relieve yourself when necessary.

     I think that it is amazing of Barbara Ehrenreich to follow through with her plan of living in poverty and seeing if she could survive.  I would never be able to do that with my lifestyle.  She lived very frugally, but was still not able to fully rely on her low wages alone.  There were people around her that had many problems and many were relying on spouses to stay off of the streets.  This really opened my eyes to the world around us and how we can't live a lavish lifestyle if we want to respect the lives of the less fortunate.