Low Wages in the USA - Essay Example

Ehrenreich portrays her principal argument regarding low wages in the USA. She expresses this succinctly, with an opinion that the poor folk, working on meagre wages, do not have sufficient financial capital to upkeep their families. She also argues that these wages are not adequate to sustain the individuals themselves. Being a proficient and competent journalist, she decides to enter and join the poor workers, with an initiative to prove her due phenomenon (Ehrenreich). Apparently, she worked in six diverse fields to give her a credible experience. She eventually proves her sentiments through thorough research.

As she worked in Key West, Florida, she grasped worthwhile evidence to support her sentiments. According to a labour act, employers should not have paid tipped workforces. Instantly, the restaurant serves was a perfect example, and were not to receive payments of more than approximately $2 every hour in wages. In case the general wages, in addition to tips, did not lie above the minimum wage of approximately $5 every hour, the employer would recompense for the deficit. This stipulation was, however, unfair. Her extensive usage of statistics depicts her thoroughness in her study.

Ehrenreich applied ingenious statistical illustrations, called logos to depict and prove the trueness of her sentiments that American people cannot survive and live on minimum wages (Ehrenreich). She ingeniously formulates her study and inclines it to only provide a plausible explanation regarding the intricacy and adversities that meagre wage workers face. She does research regarding her topic through real experiences that she integrated using pathos, to make them more comfortable.

Traditionalists believe in basic facts regarding life and greatly respect them. Ehrenreich complains about numerous adversities that low-wage workforces face. It includes concealed costs, which emanate from factors such as shelter and food. The poor people would purchase low-nutritional foodstuff, which is more expensive than food prepared at the home level. She asserts that meagre wage jobs require unskilled workforces (Ehrenreich). She, thus, expresses her arguments with a traditional perspective of what should happen.

As Ehrenreich works undercover as a meagre wage worker, she unravels their fate, as she experiments with various occupations (Ehrenreich). She utilizes her earnings for a living and accrues a month's experience in each experiment. Her profound educational background also influences her conclusions. She, eventually, finds out the truth in her previous assumptions, that it was the act was not impacting positively on low-wage workforces. Her conclusions were proven undoubted.

As the reading ends, we anticipate Ehrenreich to draw plausible conclusions from her entire encounters in the course of her study and suggest alternatives to counter such issues. She boasts of meagre experience and does not establish modes for those pantry wage workers to control their livelihood. To support her study, I would suggest privatisation of social welfare security, healthcare re-privatization, privatisation of housing and privatization of the educational system, which would present these inhabitants with more control over their lives.

Ehrenreich’s work shares almost similar sentiments as Orwell’s earlier work regarding his experiences in London and Paris. The works share thematic concerns regarding living conditions and financial constraints. In addition to that, her book resembles the reflections brought by Griffin’s Black like me and a previous reporter’s literature regarding life in extremely depraved conditions. Both tend to show that the low wage loss of workforces experience adversities in taking control over their family and individual needs.