With this policy blueprint, called Workforce 2000, the U.S. Department of Labor bluntly exposed the way that literacy ability, corporate profitability, and national productivity have all become entangled. At one time, American workers had value for their capacity to transform raw materials into consumable goods. But by the start of the twenty-first century, they had become the raw material itself. The nature of work in the United States puts a premium on the ability to traffic in symbols generally and in verbal symbols particularly, as print and print-based technologies have penetrated into virtually all aspects of money making. In an information economy, reading and writing serve as input, output, and conduit for producing profit and winning economic advantage.