Working hard isn't enough

I decided to join our DOOR
Dwell community in reading Nickel and Dimed Nickel and Dimed
by Barbara Ehrenreich last month. It was a fascinating true story about a journalist who decided to join the ranks of the working poor for a year to get an idea of how people are “not getting by in America”

Often we think of our nation as a land ripe with opportunity, allowing any individual who works hard enough with a shot at success. Simply working hard though was not enough as Barbara found while working as a Walmart employee, waitress, maid, and dishwasher:

“No one ever said that you could work hard-harder even than you ever thought possible-and still find yourself sinking ever deeper into poverty and debt”

But, perhaps you might add that it is not just a matter of working hard but working smarter that enables one a shot at success. This thought has been close to expressing my position as I have often thought that my friends working at minimum wage jobs could pull themselves out of their situations of they were strategic about where they worked, what classes they took at community college, and who they surrounded themselves by. It was this sort of subtle blame on the poor for being in the situations that they are, which Barbara’s first hand commentary spoke to:

“If you are constantly reminded of your lowly position in the social hierarchy, whether by individual managers or by a plethora of impersonal rules, you begin to accept that unfortunate status. To draw for a moment from an entirely different corner of my life, that part of me still attached to the biological sciences, there is ample evidence that animals-rats and monkey, for example- that are forced into subordinate status within their social systems adapt their brain chemistry accordingly, becoming “depressed” in humanlike ways. Their behavior is anxious and withdrawn; the level of serotonin (the neurotransmitter boosted by some antidepressants) declines in their brains. And-what is especially relevant here-they avoid fighting even in self-defense.” [211]

Without exception the jobs this journalist took demeaned her to the point where she questioned her emotional, mental, physical, and even moral reasoning abilities. Perhaps the ability to “work smarter” is not as simple as innate initiative, and so the complexities involved in “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” should invoke more compassion and critical thought.

The book ends, as many personal documentary stories do, by capitalizing on the emotions invoked and making a statement with broad social implications:

“Guilt, you may be thinking warily. Isn’t that what we are supposed to feel? But guilt doesn’t go anywhere near far enough; the appropriate emotion is shame-shame at our own dependency, in this case, on the underpaid labor of others. When someone works for less pay than she can live on-when, for example, she goes hungry so that you can eat more cheaply and conveniently-then she has made a great sacrifice for you, she has made you a gift of her abilities, her health, and her life. The “working poor,” as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society.”

Exactly what should we be ashamed of? Should we feel ashamed of shopping and eating cheaply at businesses that we now know don’t pay their workers well, should we feel ashamed for hiring maids that we now know are underpaid? While part of the response could be to change our consumption patterns to supporting socially responsible businesses, perhaps a more holistic solution would be to consider supporting legislation that protects workers, directly encouraging people who work for minimum wage, and actively advocate for businesses to buy and sell for a cause beyond profit!