Harry Gottlieb's prints from the WPA focused on the artist's responsibility to record events and emotions of the times. He saw art as a progressive force and a socially responsive and responsible activity. Going to Work conveys the dignified poverty of two workers. Although they wear ill-fitting clothing and come from shabby housing, they have a monumental presence, dominating the center of the composition.

Gottlieb was drawn to printmaking because it allowed him to translate the spontaneous application and textural effects of his drawings into graphic arts processes. In 1938, Gottlieb became a founding member of the silkscreen unit of the Federal Arts Project. Although silkscreen had been used by commercial printers for decades, these artists exploited its potential as a fine-arts process.

Silkscreen was particularly attractive to Gottlieb because the medium could mimic the qualities of a dense oil painting, or the subtle translucency of watercolor. In Going to Work, Gottlieb balances translucent areas in the background with the linear markings of the figures and the industrial buildings spewing smoke and fire on the left.