Degrees And Dollars, By Paul Krugman

Defining work
At some point in time, everyone has experienced some type of work at a certain point. When talking about work, it does not necessarily mean being cooped up in an office filing papers, building houses, performing surgery or being a professor at a university. In fact, work does not necessarily have to do with being employed. Even though work is thought of as being employed and going to a job for 8 hours a day, work is something that involves complications to it as well as there are many different types of work because work is anything that an individual puts an extra effort into to achieve a certain result. I myself have been involved with work in many different ways whether I realized it or not.
In my 18 years, I have had the opportunity
This however, is not fully true. In the article, “ Degrees and Dollars” written by author Paul Krugman, Krugman informs on his perspective of the employment aspect of work. Like previous author Andy Kessler, Krugman also takes a stand on how technology is hurting those in the workforce. Krugman states, “ Technological progress is actually reducing the demand for highly educated workers” (Krugman 1). This quote helps support how the need for an education is not a necessity because no matter your education level, you are still able to be replaced. Another quote that adds to the statement on how technology is taking over jobs is when Krugman states, “ computers help those who work with their minds, while hurting those who work with their hands” (2). More hands on jobs, are targeted the most for replacement because employers know for sure they can easily be replaced with some sort of
In the article, “ Why the rich are getting richer, and the poor, poorer”, Robert Reich informs on the workforce and its major gap between the higher society and lower society. In the article, Reich makes a comparison of boats to the different societies such as the lower, middle and upper class by stating, “ We are now in different boats, one sinking rapidly, one sinking more slowly, and the third rising steadily” (209). Reich does this because each class is somewhat going in a different directions. The upper class is succeeding and rising because of how they are able to distribute their ideas to different foreign countries, and the middle class is slowly starting to become more poor because of how different machinery is able to replace those middle class workers. As for the lower class, they are becoming poorer because of people from different countries who are wanting to work but for less money. Reich states, “ Finally, in person servers will be competing with growing numbers of immigrants, both legal and illegal” (216). Since the lower class now has to compete many of them are becoming poorer because obviously employers are going to accept people that will take less pay just so that they can save money. These lower class people are also losing jobs because the upper class are able to take those jobs and do what they want with them. The upper class can easily replace those workers with machinery just