Teacher Discussion Forums

A quote (p.279) from Ms Andrea Geffner's Barron's ESL Guide to American Business English", used by the Syracuse University English Language Institute among other sites:

...it is healthy, we (Americans in general) think, to be busy. Therefore, whether the idle rich or the welfare poor, the ill or the retired, those who do not work are considered of no use to society.

Ms Geffner sounds like a very unhappy soul.

I know many fine upstanding Americans, respected in their communities, who do not, for various reasons, have actual "jobs", as in "occupations through which money is earned".

Ms Geffner clearly does not know these persons. That is her loss.

Ms. Geffner is only relating a general viewpoint held by a society, in this case, Americans in general. It may not be her personal viewpoint, but it is a widely held, cultural mindset in America, and in most of the world. It is probably also true that the "respected" individuals that you mention are active in some useful way and not "idle".