The complete study guide is currently available as a downloadable PDF, RTF, or MS Word DOC file from the PinkMonkey MonkeyNotes download store. The complete study guide contains summaries and notes for all of the chapters; detailed analysis of the themes, plot structure, and characters; important quotations and analysis; detailed analysis of symbolism, motifs, and imagery; a key facts summary; a multiple-choice quiz, and suggested book report ideas and essay topics.

CHAPTER SUMMARIES AND NOTES

EVALUATION

Summary

In this last section, Ehrenreich evaluates her performance as a low-wage employee and her success at obtaining food and shelter. Overall, she thinks she did well as a worker and insists that no job is truly “unskilled.” She gives herself a B or B+. When she turns to the discussion of food and housing, Ehrenreich notes that the poor cannot compete with the rich on the housing market. While food is relatively inflation-proof, the cost of housing has sky-rocketed. Meanwhile, wages have not increased based on demand--at least not in a way that adequately accommodates life’s basic necessities.

Ehrenreich notes that there are vital problems with the way government determines who is in poverty as well as the way in which the public sector aids these people. Ehrenreich argues that the laws of economics do not always apply to low-wage workers because they often are restricted geographically, are fraught with the anxiety of entering a new job environment, and do not have ample information available to them.

Ehrenreich considers why low-wage employees do not stick up for themselves, and can only offer observations. In.........

Notes

In this final chapter, Ehrenreich provides an overall analysis of her project and draws together the observations she has made throughout the book. Essentially, she finds she did a good job, but that the low-wage lifestyle is unfair and impractical. She is convinced that low-wage workers will not put up with these conditions for much longer.

This chapter was written before the period of economic prosperity in the 1990s came to an end. Ehrenreich notes that Democrats did not want to discuss welfare because they did not want to find flaws in the economic bliss they took credit for creating. However, she........

The complete study guide is currently available as a downloadable PDF, RTF, or MS Word DOC file from the PinkMonkey MonkeyNotes download store. The complete study guide contains summaries and notes for all of the chapters; detailed analysis of the themes, plot structure, and characters; important quotations and analysis; detailed analysis of symbolism, motifs, and imagery; a key facts summary; a multiple-choice quiz, and suggested book report ideas and essay topics.

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