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Barbara Ehrenreich The Pursuit Of The American Dream

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In the essay, The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream, written by Barbara Ehrenreich, she discusses her observations and experiment with “White-Collar” workers in America. White-Collar workers are known as the “Middle Class” people of America. They are classified that way by the amount of income they receive. A short definition of “White-Collar” is making enough to live off of and having a little extra money on the side. Barbara thinks that, “While blue-collar poverty has become numbingly routine, white-collar unemployment-and the poverty that often results-remains a rude finger in the face of the American dream.” What I believe she is getting at with this quote, is no matter what class you are rated as, unless you are the highest class, you are going to fail. I might be reading too much into that quote and the rest of the essay, but that is the vibe I get from the text. I do not particularly agree with that, but it is her opinion. …show more content…

After ten months of trying to find a job, she hired a career coach, attended careers fairs, networking with job seekers and signing up for an employment 'boot camp' Ehrenreich was unable to find a job. She only received two offers of commission-based sales work in car insurance and cosmetics. Neither position offered enough money to land her in the middle class or the “white-collar” economic class. She entered a world that involved a huge mess of management-speaking that she found unsuitable. This involved terms such as "takeaway," "skill set," "due diligence" and "in real

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