Submitted by: Submitted by jenniedickson
Views: 121
Words: 807
Pages: 4
Category: English Composition
Date Submitted: 10/22/2014 05:36 PM
Living poor vs being poor.
Barbara Ehrenreich, Serving in Florida writes, “I'd been feeling pretty smug about my $500 efficiency, but of course it was made possible only by the $1,300 I had allotted myself for start-up costs when I began my low-wage life.” (pg. 140) Lars Eighner, On Dumpster Diving writes, “I began Dumpster diving about a year before I became homeless” (146). Both authors write on the same subject; they both tell tales of what being poor was like for them, but while both authors had to deal with being poor only one was truly poor.
Ehrenreich writes about what it is like to live off a low-paying job. She chose to live poor, however she was not poor. She allotted herself start-up money, when she began this journey. Most people would not have start-up money. Ehrenreich went into her journey knowing that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Most people could only dream of such a light, to know their misery will come to an end soon. The thing with going into a project knowing there is an end, is that it will not give you the same perspective as actually being poor. You will not know what it is like to lose everything. To watch as everything you have worked for vanishes, to not know one day to the next, where your next meal will come from. Where you will sleep that night, you will always have that comfort of knowing you could end the project at anytime. This was not the case for Lars Eighner.
Eighner writes about his experiences he had, while he was homeless. For him this was not a choice, it was his life. Eighner lived for three years on the streets with his dog Lizbeth. He watched as everything he had worked for vanished. He, even before he was homeless, began dumpster diving to try and save what money he had. He was learning to survive on the streets.
Dumpster diving at first was a way to save money, so he could put all his “sporadic income into rent”(147). Eighner started by learning what was safe to eat. As he states...