Working: What We Do All Day (2023)

What makes a “good” job good? In an ideal world, every job would offer every worker good pay, purpose and a chance to grow. However, the way we earn money and seek out a livelihood are much more complicated transactions, especially when you consider the spiraling inequities many Americans face in the workplace today. Those nuances are explored in Working: What We Do All Day, a new limited series from Higher Ground Productions, hosted by Barack Obama.

Premiering on May 17, the Working series is inspired by a classic 1974 nonfiction work of the same name by Studs Terkel. Told through oral history, the book chronicled everyday Americans of the era, their jobs and how their work impacted their lives. In the nearly 50 years since Working was published, American workers have faced explosive changes in the way they work, all in the face of increasing inequality.

In the series, Obama applies the spirit of Terkel’s book to contemporary times, focusing on workers in three different industries: home care, tech and hospitality, and shares the experiences of distinct groups of people representing a breadth of experiences therein. The series follows service employees; middle-class workers struggling to afford the rising costs of living; managers and knowledge workers afforded the luxury of earning enough to explore other, more “meaningful” work — and company heads whose decisions can affect millions of lives. With Obama as a thoughtful guide, the series seeks to answer what having a “good” job really means now.

Directors: Caroline Suh
Producers: Emelia Brown, Will Cohen, Shannon Dill, Magda Gora, Davis Guggenheim, Tracy Jarrett, Emily McCann Lesser, Ethan Lewis, Rachel Libert, Emma Moley, Sara O'Reilly, Alexandra Pitz, Laurene Powell-Jobs, Madhura Scott, Michael Sharkey, Louise Shelton, Jonathan Silberberg, Nicole Stott, Priya Swaminathan, Kristen Vaurio
Cinematographers: Luke McCoubrey

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS6GkydzCRg