Serving in Florida

The fact that poverty is a problem in America is common knowledge. However, simply just talking about it doesn't help, which is why Barbara Ehrenreich's social experiment where she spends a month living from check to check in her piece, "Nickled and Dimed". She documents all of her experiences within the month, from looking for living quarters with the cheapest rent, to working two jobs and eventually cracking under pressure.

Through just her writing alone, the stresses and pressures of being a low-wage worker in America are incredibly clear. She begins by writing about the ideas behind her decision to perform this experiment, to frantically describing all of the work she does in a short work-shift, to closing out by briefly describing the state of her coworkers as she ended the experiment. To see a change like that is truly disheartening, but one thing that stuck out to me was Barbara's and her coworkers' ability to help each other and the customers out whenever they could, whether it meant giving them extra food, or taking money out of their own tips to pay for a meal. Despite poor living standards, they seem to be able to be selfless regardless of that fact. Perhaps the awareness of all of their situations produces a sense of humility that people who are used to higher salaries take for granted.