Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America is a book written by Barbara Ehrenreich. Written from her perspective as an undercover journalist, it sets out to investigate the impact of the 1996 welfare reform act on the working poor in the United States.
Barbara Ehrenreich was an American author and political activist. During the 1980s and early 1990s, she was a prominent figure in the Democratic Socialists of America. She was a widely read and award-winning columnist and essayist and the author of 21 books. Ehrenreich was best known for her 2001 book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, a memoir of her three-month experiment surviving on a series of minimum-wage jobs. She was a recipient of a Lannan Literary Award.
Employment is a relationship between two parties regulating the provision of paid labour services. Usually based on a contract, one party, the employer, which might be a corporation, a not-for-profit organization, a co-operative, or any other entity, pays the other, the employee, in return for carrying out assigned work. Employees work in return for wages, which can be paid on the basis of an hourly rate, by piecework or an annual salary, depending on the type of work an employee does, the prevailing conditions of the sector and the bargaining power between the parties. Employees in some sectors may receive gratuities, bonus payments or stock options. In some types of employment, employees may receive benefits in addition to payment. Benefits may include health insurance, housing, disability insurance. Employment is typically governed by employment laws, organisation or legal contracts.
Bait-and-switch is a form of fraud used in retail sales but also employed in other contexts. First, customers are "baited" by merchants' advertising products or services at a low price, but when customers visit the store, they discover that the advertised goods are not available, or the customers are pressured by salespeople to consider similar, but higher-priced items ("switching").
In Japan, a freeter is a person aged 15 to 34 who is unemployed, underemployed, or otherwise lacks full-time paid employment. The term excludes housewives and students.
Hard Boiled is a three-issue comic book mini-series written by Frank Miller and drawn by Geof Darrow. It was published by American company Dark Horse Comics in 1990-1992. Frank Miller and Geof Darrow won the 1991 Eisner award for Best Writer/Artist for this series.
Job security is the probability that an individual will keep their job; a job with a high level of security is such that a person with the job would have a small chance of losing it. Many factors threaten job security: globalization, outsourcing, downsizing, recession, and new technology, to name a few.
Many both in and outside Japan share an image of the Japanese work environment that is based on a "simultaneous recruiting of new graduates" and "lifetime-employment" model used by large companies as well as a reputation of long work-hours and strong devotion to one's company. This environment is said to reflect economic conditions beginning in the 1920s, when major corporations competing in the international marketplace began to accrue the same prestige that had traditionally been ascribed to the daimyō–retainer relationship of feudal Japan or government service in the Meiji Restoration.
Anne Allison is a professor of cultural anthropology at Duke University in the United States, specializing in contemporary Japanese society. She wrote the book Nightwork on hostess clubs and Japanese corporate culture after having worked at a hostess club in Tokyo.
Immersion journalism or immersionism is a style of journalism similar to gonzo journalism. In the style, journalists immerse themselves in a situation and with the people involved. The final product tends to focus on the experience, not the writer.
Overqualification is the state of being educated beyond what is necessary or requested by an employer for a position with the business. There can often be high costs for companies associated with training employees. This could be problematic for candidates resulting in failure to secure employment for the position in question. Employers foresee costs related to hiring such “overqualified” candidates. When seeking employment, candidates should consider providing explanation to potential employers as to why they are seeking a position that requires less skill, education and therefore less pay than their education and experience qualify the candidate for.
Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream is a book by Adam Shepard, a graduate of Merrimack College, about his attempt to live the American Dream. It was conceived as a refutation of the books Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch by Barbara Ehrenreich.
A Place to Go is a 1963 British crime drama film directed by Basil Dearden and starring Bernard Lee, Rita Tushingham and Michael Sarne. Set in contemporary Bethnal Green in the East End of London, it charts the dramatic changes that were then happening in the lives of the British working class, fitting into the kitchen sink school of film-making that was popular in Britain at the time. The film was based on the novel Bethnal Green by Michael Fisher, which had been published in 1961.
The Secret is a 2006 self-help book by Rhonda Byrne, based on the earlier film of the same name. It is based on the belief of the pseudoscientific law of attraction, which claims that thoughts can change a person's life directly. The book alleges energy as assurance of its effectiveness. The book has sold 30 million copies worldwide and has been translated into 50 languages. Scientific claims made in the book have been rejected by a range of critics, pointing out that the book has no scientific foundation.
Breast cancer awareness is an effort to raise awareness and reduce the stigma of breast cancer through education about screening, symptoms, and treatment. Supporters hope that greater knowledge will lead to earlier detection of breast cancer, which is associated with higher long-term survival rates, and that money raised for breast cancer will produce a reliable, permanent cure.
Carol Graham is the Leo Pasvolsky Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, a College Park professor at the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, a research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), and the author of numerous books, papers and edited volume chapters.
The term professional–managerial class (PMC) refers to a social class within capitalism that, by controlling production processes through occupying a superior management position, is neither proletarian nor bourgeoisie. Conceived as "The New Class" by social scientists and critics such as Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the 1970s, this group of middle class professionals is distinguished from other social classes by their training and education, typically business qualifications and university degrees, with occupations thought to offer influence on society that would otherwise be available only to capital owners. The professional–managerial class tend to have incomes above the average for their country, with major exceptions being academia and print journalism.
Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future is a 2015 book by American futurist Martin Ford. What are the jobs of the future? How many will there be? And who will have them? As technology continues to accelerate and machines begin taking care of themselves, fewer people will be necessary. Artificial intelligence is already well on its way to making "good jobs" obsolete: many paralegals, journalists, office workers, and even computer programmers are poised to be replaced by robots and smart software. As progress continues, blue and white collar jobs alike will evaporate, squeezing working -- and middle-class families ever further. At the same time, households are under assault from exploding costs, especially from the two major industries-education and health care-that, so far, have not been transformed by information technology. The result could well be massive unemployment and inequality as well as the implosion of the consumer economy itself.
The Choke Artist is the 2012 autobiography of David Yoo. His fourth book, it was published eight years after his first effort “Girls For Breakfast”. The book was a selection for the Massachusetts “Must Read” list and a 2013 Finalist for the Massachusetts Book Award.
