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Chapter Summary Of Minimum Wage By Barbara Ehrenreich

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Barbara Ehrenreich wonders how americans can afford to survive financially off of just a minimum wage paying job. Ehrenreich decides to go undercover to find out for herself how these americans are barely making ends meat. The first place Ehrenreich goes to is Key West, Florida; she gets a job at a diner and finds a trailer home to live in but soon realizes that working at the diner alone cannot pay for her rent and put food on the table so Ehrenreich gets a second job working as a hotel maid. Soon the fatigue of working two strenuous jobs catches up to her and she decides to quit her two jobs before her first month of being undercover is up. The second city she visits is Portland, Maine. Ehrenreich finds a job with a residential housekeeping service and knowing that one job will not be enough to cover her living expenses, Ehrenreich also gets a job as a dietary aide in a nursing home. …show more content…

As a dietary aide, Ehrenreich finds herself taking care of all the Alzheimers patients by herself as is afraid that by making a mistake she could harm the patients. For her third and final job she goes to Minneapolis, Minnesota where she attempts to find a higher paying job and an affordable place to live. Due to the low apartment vacancy rate Ehrenreich is unable to find an affordable apartment. Luckily Ehrenreich gets hired by Wal-Mart as a softlines worker and is able to find a hotel to stay in but eventually moves to another hotel do to the lack of a boltless door. After Ehrenreich is about to move locations she tells employees that she trusts about being a reporter undercover working low wage jobs, but her fellow co workers are too busy being caught up in their own financial situations to pay her any attention. After Ehrenreich is finished working these jobs she realizes that “they don't cut you no slack. You give and give and they take”(Ehrenreich

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