Compare and contrast - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages tly, Barbara Ehrenrich’s piece, “Serving in Florida” relates a very personal tale of the hardship that an individual seeking to earn a living on minimum wage faces. Taking this experience on as a project, Ehrenrich soon realizes that in order to afford the rent, utilities and fuel that will take her back and forth to her minimum wage job she will need to take on another minimum wage job to break even. Although it would have been possible for the writer to engage the reader on a purely economic level of understanding, Ehrenrich’s piece is instead deeply emotional as the reader comes to an appreciation of the fact that the current system creates a virtual trap by which people are forced to work themselves to an early death; just as a function of “breaking even” (Ehrenrich 9). As Ehrenrich notes, this is in stark contrast to the sacrifices that previous generations have made in order to save and slowly lift themselves out of poverty.
Moving on to the second article, entitled “Culture of Success”, the reader can note that the personal tone that Ehrenrich engages is missing. Instead, the focus is placed on the fact that the labor market is flooded with college graduates; which in turn reduces the incentive for an individual to saddle themselves with mountains of debt that a college degree necessarily creates. The hardship, as the article implies, is the fact that the college degree no longer guarantees economic success for the future aspirations of the individuals that receive it. Instead, a saturated job market is proliferated by individuals with college debt and rather useless college degrees; creating a situation in which the incentive to gain higher education has all but evaporated (Brinck 4). Another differentiation that is impacting upon the job market has to do with the fact that fewer and fewer minorities are making the decision to invest the time and money that is required for a college degree. Reviewing this decision from the standpoint ...Download file to see next pagesRead More