Why People Work

Paper Summary:

This paper compares and contrasts literary articles on how work is regarded in American society today. It explains that Richard Rodriguez offers the traditional viewpoint, a portrayal of all work as filled with the potential of ennobling persons to elevate their condition with sweat. But Henry Louis Gates Jr., it expands, claims that perspectives upon work are tainted by the legacy of racism and slavery. Manual work, however, Richard Reich and Barbara Ehrenreich would counter, is not inherently degrading. It is only because such work has been so poorly paid over the course of American history that such jobs are regarded as expendable, and wealth is seen as equal to success.

From the Paper:

"It is Ehrenreich's point of view that offers perhaps the most comprehensive, and the most satisfying portrait of work on a human as well as on a sociological level. Ehrenreich discusses the difficulty of living as a lower-income worker in America today. Quite often, waitresses, maids, and other people whose manual labor makes modern life possible and easy are simply ignored because people who work at more esteemed occupations assume they are better people because of what they do for a living. Because society does not value lower-paid, manual occupations, and by extension the people who work in these occupations, such often have no benefits, low pay, and are seen almost as a fitting and just punishment upon the workers for not being able to move into the ranks of the middle class."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Ehrenreich, Barbara. "Nickel and Dimed." The McGraw-Hill Reader: Issues Across the
• Disciplines. 8th Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003.
• Gates, Henry Louis. "Delusions of Grandeur" The McGraw-Hill Reader: Issues
• Across the Disciplines. 8th Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003.
• Reich, Robert. "Why the Rich Are Getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer."

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