Grant Shapps Quotes

It is very difficult to reverse social benefits…

When you talk about war on poverty it doesn't mean very much; but if you can show to some degree this sort of thing then you can show a great deal more of how people are living and a very great percentage of our people today.

Taxing poor families runs counter to decades of effort to help people lift themselves out of poverty through work.

It's not enough to have economic growth. You have to distribute wealth throughout all of society.

The Clinton administration cared a lot about the middle class and the poor. But it also cared a lot - too much, in retrospect - about the rich.

There was never a war on poverty. Maybe there was a skirmish on poverty.

So when the only domestic social policy is tax cuts that mostly benefit the wealthiest Americans, we say, 'Where is faith being put into action here?'

I don't think they [Congress] ought to balance their budget on the backs of the poor.

The more we spend on social spending the more we create an appetite for more social spending.

I would change the tax system markedly. The market system is wonderful but you have to take care of the poople who are left behind and do not profit from it.

We think there are better solutions to fighting poverty because we see what the War on Poverty has produced. It produced tens of trillions of dollars in spending. It has been a 51-year exercise, and yet the poverty rates in America today are not much better than when we started the War on Poverty.

Politicians seem desperate to appeal to their respective versions of the so called 'middle class,' unable to empathise with the precariat and eager to dream up fresh and tougher sanctions against society's wounded.

When economist William Beveridge dreamed up the postwar welfare state he wanted to fight five 'giant evils' - want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness. Fast forward 65 years and it seems the last New Labour government grew an Unfair State that fuelled - not fought - one of those evils: idleness.

Instead of helping a lucky few to escape disadvantage, a Labour government will aim to abolish poverty completely and create a more equal society, raising the living standards and well-being of all.

Means-tested benefits have one incredible feature in that they impose huge poverty traps.

You are not going to lift everybody out of poverty through the kindness of wealthy people.

It is absolute poverty that you could end, but I think relative poverty is a whole other issue.

It's more important to try to do something for the crores of poor people of my country.

The only way to have a better world and end poverty is by closing the gap between the top and the bottom.

We cannot afford to leave the poor behind.

You cannot sift out the poor from the community. The poor are indispensable to the rich.

Even the best community organizations and faith-based initiatives and the extraordinary charity of Americans across the country can't carry the brunt of eliminating poverty.

There are people who believe in expanding the welfare state across the spectrum of races and ethnicities and creeds.

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.

In order to counteract income inequality, it's essential to tackle poverty in an integrated way that has long-term impact. We need to give people the capacity to be resilient, to take on challenges and to learn the skills they need to work toward more prosperous futures.