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  • Essay / Comparative Analysis of the Books “The Jungle” and “Fast Food Nation”

    The Jungle and Fast Food Nation both focus on the dangers and horrors of the food industry. The Jungle focuses more on the industry of the early 1900s, while Fast Food Nation focuses more on a more modern workplace. Both the Jungle and Fast Food Nation have social and political patterns such as worker wages, illegal employee practices, and workplace safety hazards that still exist today. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay The wages of workers in Fast Food Nation and The Jungle are issues in both books. The Jungle depicts the lives of Lithuanian immigrants who must find employment in Chicago's meatpacking district, Packingtown. The family of twelve arrives in America only to find that it's not what they thought. Four of the twelve family members are physically capable of working and must do so in order for the family to survive. Jurgis, the strong, active male figure of the family, gets a job at a beef processing plant sweeping entrails off the floor. Jurgis earns a dollar and fifty cents for a ten-hour day's work. His fiancée, Ona, Ona's cousin, Ona's step-uncle, and Jurgis' father also find work in this meatpacking factory, earning the same salary. The money earned from the work of the four people is pooled together in an attempt to pay a down payment on a house. Once the down payment is made, the family members, mainly Jurgis, must continue to work to pay the twelve dollars a month needed to live off the house money. For this family, this price is a bit expensive, but it is doable, and it is what they must do to survive. This unfortunate path is one that many people still experience today. Just like the Jungle's Lithuanian immigrant family, people today are not earning what they need to survive. A Huffington Post article reports that in 2017, a person working full time for the federal minimum wage of 7.25 an hour cannot afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment. It would appear that the rental rate for such an apartment would require at least double the federal minimum wage in almost every state. The Lithuanian family did not even earn the minimum wage in their time, that is, in 1906. According to Fraser Economic History, the minimum wage for a model maker like Marija, Ona's cousin, is forty cents of the 'hour. Not even getting the minimum wage would make life almost impossible for workers at that time. Like the Lithuanian immigrant family in The Jungle, poor or lower-income people whose jobs pay minimum wage cannot afford to pay for their homes and provide for human needs like food and water. . The same pattern of underpaying employees still occurs over a hundred years after the events of The Jungle. Another pattern evident in The Jungle is the practice of immigrants desperate for money being thrown into jobs that don't pay well for a long, difficult period. hours during which they will work. As previously reported, some members of the Lithuanian Jungle family are forced to find work in a meatpacking factory. They work long days, ten to twelve hours, and work those long days for less than the minimum wage of forty cents an hour that they should have received. The same thing happensstill happening today in America. A report by the Texas Tribune writes that undocumented immigrants have a lot of work to do. Although they have a multitude of jobs to choose from, some workers will earn around ninety dollars for a fourteen-hour workday, which works out to around $6.41 per hour. The hiring and covert payment of illegal immigrants is also evident in Fast Food Nation. The book describes how nearly a sixth of America's fast food workers are in the United States illegally. These workers are also always replaceable, giving unfair powers to the employer and very weak powers to the employee. Many like Lithuanians, immigrants are still exploited in the modern labor market. Workplace accidents are common in the Jungle and still occur in the workplace today. In The Jungle, Jurgis suffers an ankle injury. An ox breaks loose in the slaughter area and the entire floor goes into a frenzy. The men scatter, many of them with large knives in their hands. Jurgis, while trying to avoid a violent, escaped ox, and men wielding knives and falling and running around, gets his foot caught in a trap that collects blood and intestines from slaughtered oxen. He twists his ankle. At first, he does not realize that he has injured his ankle and continues to work. The next day, Jurgis struggles to put on his boot to go to work. He nearly faints at work, but a factory doctor sends him home. He is devastated and afraid that he cannot work and support his family on the meager salary he receives. Many workers in dangerous factories like these continue to work even if they are injured, because they need their wages to survive. If they are unemployed due to an accident, they may not receive a salary. Meat manufacturing remains a dangerous job today. Safety rules have evolved since Jurgis's time, but the problem persists. A report by NPR indicates that in nine years, 151 people have died from workplace accidents at meatpacking plants. NPR also said that meatpacking injuries are more numerous than any other industry, and that many accidents that occur in these meatpacking plants go unreported or undocumented due to details techniques. One reason is that many workers are immigrants or lower class people and do not want to report their injury to protect their jobs. Although both focus on the food industry, The Jungle and Fast Food Nation both focus on different eras. The Jungle, set in 1906, focuses on a time when the workplace was not as regulated as it is today. Fast Food Nation focuses on a newer era of the workplace. However, these two books present similar political and social patterns related to modern times, such as unfair wages, employers hiring illegal and shadow employees, and the dangers of working in the food industry. The Jungle and Fast Food Nation both focus on the dangers and horrors of the food industry. The Jungle focuses more on the industry of the early 1900s, while Fast Food Nation focuses more on a more modern workplace. Both The Jungle and Fast Food Nation have social and political patterns such as worker wages, illegal employee practices, and workplace safety risks that still existnowadays. Working wages in Fast Food Nation and The Jungle are issues in both books. The Jungle depicts the lives of Lithuanian immigrants who must find employment in Chicago's meatpacking district, Packingtown. The family of twelve arrives in America only to find that it's not what they thought. Four of the twelve family members are physically capable of working and must do so in order for the family to survive. Jurgis, the strong, active male figure of the family, gets a job at a beef processing plant sweeping entrails off the floor. Jurgis earns a dollar and fifty cents for a ten-hour day's work. His fiancée, Ona, Ona's cousin, Ona's step-uncle, and Jurgis' father also find work in this meatpacking factory, earning the same salary. The money earned from the work of the four people is pooled together in an attempt to pay a down payment on a house. Once the down payment is made, the family members, mainly Jurgis, must continue to work to pay the twelve dollars a month needed to live off the house money. For this family, this price is a bit expensive, but it is doable, and it is what they must do to survive. This unfortunate path is one that many people still experience today. Just like the Jungle's Lithuanian immigrant family, people today are not earning what they need to survive. A HuffingtonPost news article reports that in 2017, a person working full time for the federal minimum wage of 7.25 an hour cannot afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment. It would appear that the rental rate for such an apartment would require at least double the federal minimum wage in almost every state. The Lithuanian family did not even earn the minimum wage in their time, that is, in 1906. According to Fraser Economic History, the minimum wage for a model maker like Marija, Ona's cousin, is forty cents of the 'hour. Not even getting the minimum wage would make life almost impossible for workers at that time. Like the Lithuanian immigrant family in The Jungle, poor or lower-income people whose jobs pay minimum wage cannot afford to pay for their homes and provide for human needs like food and water. . The same pattern of underpaying employees still occurs over a hundred years after the events of The Jungle. Another pattern evident in The Jungle is the practice of immigrants desperate for money being thrown into jobs that don't pay well for a long, difficult period. hours during which they will work. As previously reported, some members of the Lithuanian Jungle family are forced to find work in a meatpacking factory. They work long days, ten to twelve hours, and work those long days for less than the minimum wage of forty cents an hour that they should have received. The same thing is still happening today in America. A report by the Texas Tribune writes that undocumented immigrants have a lot of work to do. Although they have a multitude of jobs to choose from, some workers will earn around ninety dollars for a fourteen-hour workday, which works out to around $6.41 per hour. The hiring and covert payment of illegal immigrants is also evident in Fast Food Nation. The book describes how nearly a sixth of America's fast food workers are in the United States illegally. These workers are also always replaceable, giving unfair powers to the employer and very weak powers to.