Ballin

Nickel and Dimed Paper

The United States is considered to be one of the most developed nations in the world with a high per capita income and living standards. For an immigrant, the US is the land of opportunities where any one can become rich over night with minimal efforts. However, the reality is far from such notions. Instead the US is also striving towards a worry-free life for its population and most importantly, its people are struggling to survive despite the high GDP and standards of living. At the heart of this Wall Street nation is a working population that is struggling to "get by" on low wages that are given to them as pay. The population is still strived with poverty, individuals depending on food stamps, soup kitchens and welfare money. For this reason, one observe that the American population is characterized by class distinction, one group enjoying high salaries and privileged lives while the other group is still struggling under minimum wages. Hence, the differences between these two classes of society not only make the US vulnerable to social inequality but also the cause for the rise in poverty population. Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed a book that records just this differences and misconception about the American living standard.

Instead of a minimum wage the US should go by a living wage. A living wage is a term used to describe the minimum hourly wage necessary for a person to achieve some specific standard of living. In the context of developed countries such as the United States this standard generally means that a person working forty hours a week, with no additional income, should be able to afford a specified quality or quantity of housing, food, utilities, transportation, health care, and recreation. This concept differs from the minimum wage in that the latter is set by law and may fail to meet the requirements of a living wage. The minimum wage in California right now