Underpaid and Underprivileged

I found Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Nickel-and-Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America”, an account on living at the poverty level in America, to be disturbing. If anything her writing made me feel kind of guilty about how I take my current financial position and education for granted. The hands on a/step into their shoes approach made this piece slightly more authentic than just throwing out statistics.

Tom Hayden’s sweatshop article, “Pennies an Hour and No Way Up”, further reinforced my feelings against the evils of foreign sweatshop labor for American companies. I find it frustrating that our government hasn’t done much lately in order to prevent such exploitation – but then again we live in George W. Bush’s America and it’s been awhile since anyone’s bashed Kathie Lee Gifford.