Postage...

Barbara Ehrenreich's "Nickel-and-Dimed" was a great read. She created a solo "experiment" where she dropped everything she was doing to experience poverty firsthand. As another classmate stated in his post, other journalists write about poverty but have never been in that situation themselves. Everything that she talks about in her essay is so true. I worked at a restaurant when I was younger and there is a whole workforce of people from young to old, all qualified skill-wise far greater than what they are doing. There is a line that a highlighted on page 380 from the last paragraph, "...the camaraderie of people who are, in almost all cases, far too smart and funny and caring for the work they do and the wages they're paid."

Tom Hayden and Charles Kernaghan's quick selection was jaw-dropping. I never knew that people were making so little in sweatshops to produce petty goods here in the United States. 1.6 cents for each baseball cap, are you serious?! That's ridiculous. And to think that people in the U.S. complain about making minimum wage.