Barack Obama Quotes

We can afford to pay workers fairly, and it is the right thing to do. We also need equal pay for equal work.

On the campaign, I've had the privilege of advocating for important issues that affect all women, like demanding equal pay for equal work, pushing to raise our minimum wage, and promoting the idea of paid family leave.

No woman who works full time and plays by the rules should have to raise her family in poverty.

Wages, which cannot be considered as a mere commodity must enable the worker and his family to have access to a truly human standard of living in the material, social, cultural and spiritual orders.

We should put hardworking families first by voting on legislation to create jobs, raise wages, provide equal pay for women, invest in education, protect voting rights, and pass comprehensive immigration reform.

As we say we fight for working people, we have to make sure our policies reflect that.

I will strengthen our unions and our middle-class families so that no longer will they be pushed around by employers but will finally have a seat at the table.

[Martin Luther King, Jr.] would want us to celebrate him, his birth, and his legacy by acting upon his agenda, by realizing the dream, by making the minimum wage a living wage, by having not just family and medical leave, but paid sick leave for our workers, [and] by having quality, affordable child care so that our families, the power of women can be unleashed in our economy and in our society.

I want to applaud those workers rallying to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour. I believe strongly that a great nation will not survive when so few have so much and so many have so little. Every worker in America should be given respect, dignity and the wages and benefits they need to take care of their family.

When thousands of men and women work full time but need food stamps to put food on their tables, when they can't get health benefits, when they can't get paid sick days, then we must do whatever we can to stand up for them.

I'm willing to fight for Social Security, Medicare, student loans, U.S. jobs, equal pay, progressive taxation and full employment.

America's workers deserve a clean vote on a $7.25 increase, with no strings attached. Such an increase helps everyone and hurts no one.

Plain and simple, Congress must act to meet the needs of our constituents. We can do that by strengthening families, increasing the minimum wage, and ensuring equal pay for equal work.

As we move beyond Women's History Month, I am committed to advancing legislation to raise the minimum wage and ensure women are paid equally for equal work.

House Republican leadership have refused to allow a clean minimum wage vote. Close to 15 million Americans will be affected if we did this. Do Republicans really expect a family to live on less than $11,000 a year?

Equal pay isn't just a women's issue; when women get equal pay, their family incomes rise and the whole family benefits.

Discriminatory wage practices undermine women's ability to provide for their families and survive on a decent retirement income.

When mothers earn their fair share, young children have greater access to quality health care, educational opportunities, and safe communities. By ending the wage gap, we will help ensure that every child can achieve his or her God-given potential.

It is time this Congress listened to the American people and minimum-wage workers, and it is time that we act.

The organized workers of America, free in their industrial life, conscious partners in production, secure in their homes and enjoying a decent standard of living, will prove the finest bulwark against the intrusion of alien doctrines of government.

Raising the minimum wage is the right thing to do, but it's a popular thing to do as well.

President Obama believes that income inequality is one of the most pressing matters facing the nation. If we are going to be a country that provides ladders of opportunity and believes in a thriving middle class, then we have to raise the minimum wage.

I think the idea that giant profitable corporations should pay their workers enough so that they don't need food stamps - since when is that left-wing? How did that become 'leftie?' That doesn't seem leftie to me. That seems common sense.

So I will stand more steadfastly for the things I stand up for, like people who work for a living. I'd like to be able to stand that way when I go to Congress.

Were the workers who sweated to put food on my table paid at least minimum wage? Did they get health benefits? Overtime? Were they unionized? Protected from pesticide exposure?