Monday, May 9, 2011

Summarizer. Section 8. Pages 199-221. Brittney Nehring

This is the Evaluation section of the book, and she does exactly that.  Barbara reflects on what keeps these wages low.  She talks about how the labor shortage in many cities could be because of the unwillingness of people to work these low wages.  It was interesting how she says employers will often do anything except raise wages, instead they will offer free meals and discounts because these things can easily be taken away if needed.  One thing that restricts people in the low wage jobs from leaving is the fact that many of them don’t have their own transportation and rely on someone else.  This prevents them because they would have no way of getting to work if the distance was greater.  People also stay at these low wage jobs because the employers make them feel unworthy, therefore they think they are getting paid all that they are worth, and couldn’t get higher pay.  Ehrenreich writes this section in a way that shows she has done the research and knows what she is talking about.  She explains reasons for why things are the way they are with low wages and also is very confident in what she believes when saying poverty should be treated as an emergency.  This section is written to put some additional meaning to her experience.  It is also written very casual as the rest of the book was.

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