In recent years, the United States has seen both an increase in the percentage of low-quality jobs and an increase in the percentage of the workforce made up of marginalized groups (women and people of color). Traditional explanations tend to see these concurrent trends as associated, but not causally. Through a synthetic review of the relevant literature, this paper suggests that devaluing the workforce contributes to a degradation in job quality and offers propositions to guide work toward a more equitable future.