Serving in Florida

I think the author of "Serving in Florida" would agree with the statement, "inequality will always exist: some people will always be rich, and some people will always be poor" because of her experience working at the Hearthside. She witnessed multiple people from different races, genders, and ages all working minimum-wage jobs and barely affording a place to stay and not ever having money left over to save. Even if one of them, such as Gail or Joan, were to be promoted and replace Phillip, they would not make enough money to save and "get rich." In Barbara's experiment, she leaves her Florida Key's lifestyle to work a minimum-wage job as a waitress in a restaurant connected to a hotel. She was originally wanting to be a maid but then deemed suitable as a waitress. In the reading it states, "I am at the wrong end of some infallible ethnic equation: most, but by no means all, of the working house-keepers I see on my job searches are African Americans, Spanish-speaking, or refugees from the Central European post-Communist world." Barbara believes that you need to be a white English speaking person to get a job that has human interaction. A job that pays more from tips and would be easier to get promoted. All of the workers have their own struggles, weather it's the Haitian men living in crammed quarters or the host, Joan, living in her car behind a shopping center. No matter what a person looks like or how they dress, they could be in worse conditions than someone in torn clothes. Joan wears nice clothes and gives the appearance of having a better lifestyle, but buys all of her clothes from a thrift shop and lives in a car. Some people can work their entire life and always be poor.

Serving in Flordia

From the reading, “Serving in Florida” by Barbra Ehrenreich, she lives the life of a lower-class woman trying to get by day by day. I think she would agree with the statement that moving up the socio-economic ladder is too difficult in America, which she states in the beginning of the article. She would agree with this because she couldn’t even find a regular job to pay regular bills. By regular bills I mean rent, light bill, water bill etc. Jobs that she applied for were minimum paying jobs that didn’t hire her for reasons of their own. She wasn’t a bad person or anything, no misdemeanors, she was a U.S citizen and she passed the pee tests. This shows how hard it is just to get a job, let alone a minimum wage paying job. If it’s so hard to get a low paying job, just think of how hard it is to gain a high paying job and the requirements. Not only do you need degrees, you also need experience which is also hard to gain because it goes back to getting a low paying job. To be able to move up the socio-economic ladder you need a high paying job or some high amount of income. When I think of high class, I think of really rich people in fancy cars and I know that they aren’t surviving on a minimum wage pay check. I also know that they, if not most of them, aren’t school dropouts, druggies, etc., unless they were born into the riches of course. She would agree with this statement because she lived it. When you experience things, you can then put your life into agreements or disagreements. Almost like living testimonies. 

Serving in Florida

I think Barbara Ehrenreich would disagree with the idea of everyone in America already having an equal opportunity to be successful. Ehrenreich discusses her experiment in which she experiences the life of a lower class minimum wage worker. She delves into a local area in Florida in which the local residence share most of the same struggles; money being the the primary struggle. She would disagree with the claim that everyone has an equal opportunity by using the fact that certain circumstances are limited by environment. During her experience Ehrenreich discusses the limited availability of prospect employment opportunities  as well as insufficient living quarters in the local vicinity. Without the initial opportunity of a viable employment there is no opportunity for somewhere to live. Ehrenreich gives the example of the Key West area, where the experiment takes place, having only flophouses and trailer homes- like the one, a pleasing fifteen-minute drive from town, that has no air-conditioning, no screens, no fans and no television (Ehrenreich 918). This example shows the truly deficient availability of residency on the island. Insufficient compensation also follows the acquisition of one of the few jobs in the area. Minimum wage in a high expense area is no where close to covering monthly financial responsibilities. Ehrenreich compiles a list of her coworkers living situations most of which are rooming with one or several other people. The reason for all of these disadvantages can be contributed to the region. Obtaining a stable livelihood in a remote region such as an island can be very difficult. With no savings and no higher education to help someone job opportunities grow smaller.  It is this fact in a disadvantage that Ehrenreich illustrates through her experiment of becoming a minimum wage worker that not everyone in America has an equal opportunity to be successful compared to another region advantaged with better opportunities. 

Income inequality from Barbara Ehrenreich

The Author of “Poverty in Florida” would most likely agree with the statement “America has a problem with income equality that needs to be fixed”. Barbara Ehrenreich says, “During a month of poverty no one recognized my name…” This means that in society people do not care for the poor, as they should and that there is a huge inequality gap between the rich and the poor. She also states that it is very hard to move up in the income gap. She believes that when somebody is poor it is very hard to move up to then become rich and have money. She undergoes the struggles of being poor and says that at one point she would be $100 short on rent, which could possibly make her not have a home. She believes that life in poverty is a had life in which it is very hard to acquire wealth, which then makes it even hard to sustain life off of such a little income furthermore make it very difficult to sustain a family off that income. This leads to my conclusion that Ehrenreich would agree that America has a problem with inequality in income that needs to be fixed in order for the poor to stop struggling as much as they do.

Equality Much?

The author in “Serving in Florida” would most likely disagree with the statement that “ Everyone in America already has an equal opportunity to be successful”. In terms of money not everybody is treated equal. Now that is not to say that we should change ourselves into an all equal sharing economy like communism. No, what we must see is that not everybody is given the same opportunities as others. It is very likely that someone coming from a middle-class or wealthy family would receive more opportunities than somebody in a poor family. That doesn’t mean that nobody can  get out of being poor, it just means that more opportunities are more likely coming from a wealthier position that someone starts on. That is the key, “where do we start?”. The authors experiment and background are examples of 2 different starting points. Where she references that in this parallel universe , where her dad didn’t get out of the mines and she didn’t get a college education, explains the 2 starting points. One where she starts in a capable position to get a college degree and likely be paid more. Or one where she has to start from practically the opposite and gets the , very rare, benefit of having $1000 help start. Now after considering where you start, we have to understand that getting a job is even more of a challenge to equal opportunity. The author states that finding a job is about being at the right place at the right time. Which is true because dependent of your level of education , even then you can never surely secure a job. Its more about timing and being lucky enough that the interviewer likes you enough to higher you. However this still doesn’t mean that everybody has equal opportunity to be successful because in reality who would have a higher chance to gain a regular grade office job? A person with at least a degree in said profession , or the just new immigrant who is looking for a start up to the American dream?

The Equality of Opportunity

I think that the author of “Serving in Florida” would disagree with the statement “everyone in America has an equal opportunity to be successful” because of her personal experience in the minimum-wage marketplace. I believe that everyone in America has the opportunity to be successful, and I’m sure the author would too, however, this opportunity is not always equal. The author talks about how most of the employees that she works with are in financially desperate situations because of prior experiences they have had that negatively impacted their lives. Although I agree that people “make their own path” through life, sometimes there are outside elements that are out of their control and really can limit opportunity. The author also talks about how if she had not had a little over $1,000 in buffer money starting out her low-wage lifestyle she most likely would have been in really bad shape. There are always money-related problems that arise in everyday life that the minimum-wage salary does not take in to account. One’s potential opportunity can be limited to prior financial stability, educational experience, networking connections, etc. There are so many factors that can influence potential success in America, even one’s gender or race can have a profound effect on the limiting of opportunities. Although these limitations can be mildly annoying at times, they are not an excuse, the opportunity is still there it might just require more effort. The author also talks about the way the employees are treated, and I think that this sheds light in to how people are categorized by their social class. Minimum wage employees are often treated as “disposable” because of their lack of wealth and influence. Even though a large number of minimum-wage workers might be felons or drug addicts, it is unreasonable to cast this label on every poverty-stricken person. Respect is oftentimes directly related to one’s financial well being, and it is becoming increasingly easier to de-humanize people based on their economic standing. Overall, there is opportunity for everyone but it is not necessarily equal and might be more visible to some than to others. I think that the author would certainly agree that America offers more potential opportunities to the average person than a place like Afghanistan might, however, we cannot allow this to blind us from positive social change. 

Feb 27

I believe that Barbara Ehrenreich would agree that the American dream is still accessible to the majority of Americans. If one wants to be successful in life then they are going to have to work for it because nothing comes easy in this world and nothing is entirely free. Barbara is living on her own and she is looking for a new place to live in Florida but all of the real estate is well out of her budget. This means she must work for what she wants, otherwise she will most likely be living out on the streets. So she takes it upon herself with no help from anyone to get a job and work to earn the money she needs to pay for living. As she searches for a job she soon makes a list of all the jobs that she would not enjoy doing and all of the jobs that she would enjoy doing. Barbara chooses as her last resort to go back to waitressing. As a teen she waitressed through high school and all she can remember is that it tires her out and she did not enjoy herself like she would. Barbara needed money so she wasn’t passing up on any offers. Barbara is showing that here in America you can choose the occupation you want to fit your needs and desires in life. She will work for her “car, house, rent, food, and other needs” to satisfy her desires. Once she has all of these things that she wants she will soon realize how happy she will be because she has worked for these things and nothing was given to her. Instead of sitting on her but looking for a hand out she decides to take action into her own hands and goes to work. Not everyone can go to work so she is an example of how to live the American dream in order to be happy.