Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Quotes

I don't mind the rich getting richer, but the poor shouldn't be getting poorer, and there should be more people moving into the middle class.

We continue to recognize the greater ability of some to earn more than others. But we do assert that the ambition of the individual to obtain for him a proper security is an ambition to be preferred to the appetite for great wealth and great power.

People say law but they mean wealth.

The fact is, riches are power, and poverty is slavery all over the earth, and one sort of establishment is no better, no worse, for a people than another.

Income inequity has to be addressed.

We do not accept that ours will ever be a nation of haves and have-nots. We must always be a nation of haves and soon-to-haves.

Poverty must be reduced not only for reasons of moral and justice, but also of security.

There never can be equality of rewards or possessions so long as the human plan contains varied talents and differing degrees of industry and thrift, but ours ought to be a country free from the great blotches of distressed poverty.

Income inequality is the central problem all the way across the world.

Unless you’re at the very top, you need a more equitable economy.

We must ensure the economy really works for all, to address unconscionable wealth and income disparities that allow access to opportunity for some over others.

We have an economy that's really geared toward rewarding the investor class. What are we doing to make sure that people who want to have a middle-class life are able to keep up?

I've often said that far more sensible than a 'make poverty history' campaign would be a 'make wealth history' campaign. It is, after all, the wealthy people who do all the damage. The less money you earn, the fewer resources you use up.

Franklin Roosevelt said the test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance to those who have much; it is whether we provide enough to those who have too little. This reconciliation package fails that test as well.

We don't need to solve the problem of the rich-poor gap. We need to solve the problem of common prosperity.

Prosperity isn't something that squirts out of rich people.

Income inequality is troubling because, among other things, it means that many people in our society don't have the opportunities to advance themselves.

Economic growth is the key. Economic growth is the key to everything. But once you have economic growth, it is important that we reach out to people who live in the shadows, the people who don't seem to ever think that they get a fair deal.

One of the great political and economic challenges of our time is figuring out the balance between wealth that benefits society and wealth that distorts.

My own experience in the third world was that even if people started to make more money, the cost of living and housing increased often faster than the wages.

We cannot afford to leave the poor behind.

I don't get up in the morning and think my mission is to end Britain. I do get up in the morning and think that my mission is to end poverty.

But I don't think the Democratic Party is at eye level with the middle class.

It would be nice if the poor were to get even half of the money that is spent in studying them.

One of the things I get amused by is when my opponent talks about the middle class.