(no subject)

[labrujah]

I just finished Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickle and Dimed, about her experiences trying to live off minimum wage jobs in different cities.

It was totally great and raises some good questions about why the minimum wage isn't keeping pace with demand for labor and increased productivity -- why people make less now for the same work than they did in the 70's. (Partly because workers don't compare wages from place to place, and aren't unionized.)

And why housing is so expensive and out of reach of even working families.

It's amazing, at her most successful month, she works two jobs and lives in a fleabag motel and manages to save $22.

Comments

[pivovision]

i should read it.
i am really obsessed about this right now and i would like to do a documentary about some aspect of this.
we saw something on thirteen about a town in the midwest where all the jobs come from a Tyson chicken plant, which is pulling the "we're cutting your wages, take it or leave it" maneuver that is going around.

i got so mad in so many ways, down to my personal favorite -- the high school kids want a better life, so to go to college and "get a good education" they are going to take out student loans, like i did, and spend the rest of their lives in debt.
and i have been "lucky" -- i'm in a union, i have health care, but a noose of loans determine many decisions in my life.
it was maybe a frontline? not sure.
anyway, i really want to read this, too.

[labrujah.livejournal.com]

A documentary is a great idea. I was thinking of a book of photos and interviews with people in their living spaces -- esp. in New York, people live in unheated shacks and basements and all kinds of insane places. And that's not even considering the actual homeless.

The only thing missing from the book is what, concretely, you can do to change anything. And I think a documentary would help a lot.

[sissychrissy1.livejournal.com]

Just a couple of weeks ago, I designed a human rights activity lesson for high schoolers on the right to organize in unions, and I used Nickel and Dimed as part of the lesson, along with Fast Food Nation. It's such a shameful truth about the way employment, economy, and welfare are set up in our country.

[larrondo.livejournal.com]

I read the condensed version- the Harper's article from which it sprang. I think the decline of the middle class and poor is a death knell for America.

[labrujah.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's the thing -- now there are many more rich people who can buy up the conveniently located housing or land to build McMansions on.