"New Orleans is a city whose basic industry is the service industry. That's why it makes its money. That's - it brings people to the city. People come to the city and experience the wonders of this extraordinary city and everything else. The question is that, how do we create jobs which are the jobs that have pay, that - living wages?"
About this Quote
New Orleans gets sold as a feeling: brass notes spilling onto a street, a cocktail sweating in your hand, the promise that wonder is always one corner away. Danny Glover’s quote cuts through that romance with a blunt economic fact: the city’s “basic industry” is serving other people’s good time. He’s not sneering at hospitality; he’s naming the bargain that tourism-heavy places quietly make, where culture becomes the product and residents become the labor force that keeps the product polished.
The intent is diagnostic, almost union-adjacent. Glover frames service work as the engine that “brings people” and “makes its money,” then pivots to the real question: who gets to live decently inside the postcard? That dash-stutter rhythm (“That’s - it brings… That - living wages?”) reads like someone arguing in real time with the easy civic narrative. He’s refusing the comforting idea that a booming visitor economy automatically equals a thriving local economy.
Subtext: New Orleans’ magic is inseparable from exploitation risks. The “wonders” tourists consume are built on underpaid cooks, housekeepers, musicians, bartenders, and drivers, often working precarious hours while rents climb in the wake of outside demand. In the post-Katrina era especially, “rebuilding” talk frequently celebrated resilience while dodging the harder arithmetic of wage floors, worker protections, and who benefits from redevelopment.
Glover’s framing also challenges a common political dodge: treating jobs as a raw count. He’s asking for quality, not quantity - work that can anchor a life in the very city being marketed. The line lands because it punctures the myth that hospitality is destiny, and insists New Orleans deserves an economy that doesn’t require its people to serve their way to the edge.
The intent is diagnostic, almost union-adjacent. Glover frames service work as the engine that “brings people” and “makes its money,” then pivots to the real question: who gets to live decently inside the postcard? That dash-stutter rhythm (“That’s - it brings… That - living wages?”) reads like someone arguing in real time with the easy civic narrative. He’s refusing the comforting idea that a booming visitor economy automatically equals a thriving local economy.
Subtext: New Orleans’ magic is inseparable from exploitation risks. The “wonders” tourists consume are built on underpaid cooks, housekeepers, musicians, bartenders, and drivers, often working precarious hours while rents climb in the wake of outside demand. In the post-Katrina era especially, “rebuilding” talk frequently celebrated resilience while dodging the harder arithmetic of wage floors, worker protections, and who benefits from redevelopment.
Glover’s framing also challenges a common political dodge: treating jobs as a raw count. He’s asking for quality, not quantity - work that can anchor a life in the very city being marketed. The line lands because it punctures the myth that hospitality is destiny, and insists New Orleans deserves an economy that doesn’t require its people to serve their way to the edge.
Quote Details
| Topic | Work |
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