Clarence Page Quotes

The burning issue of our time is the growing inequality in income and wealth in our country.

I'm interested in illuminating the enormous disparity between vast poverty and the tiny upper class... This vast inequity is unfair by definition, and I am interested in illuminating that and, where possible, changing that.

Today, half of the national income goes to the richest 10 percent. In 2007, the top 1 percent controlled 34.6 percent of the wealth—significantly more than the bottom 90 percent who control just 26.9 percent.

The extent of and continuing increase in inequality in the United States greatly concern me.

The world is richer than ever, and the gaps between rich and poor are wider.

If you have extremes of haves and have-nots where the gap keeps growing, the have-nots group together and create social disorder, as they can't see a way out of their situation.

I think America has dealt with - I mean, this is simplistic, and of course I don't live in America - but the impression I get is that there is not a kind of obligation to dislike those who are better off or be frightened of those who are worse off.

Colour is not the issue in America; class is.

In real terms, there is a greater disparity of earnings between the very rich and the very poor.

Class structures are a luxury that we cannot afford.

The biggest single challenge to America and our future is income inequality. We've got to fix it.

The messenger matters. When people of modest means complain about inequality, it usually gets written off as class warfare, but when billionaires complain, the problem is redefined.

Social inequality … divides society into two classes -- the wage-slaves and the grabbers of capital

An imbalance between the rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.

No one should have more than five times the wealth of the poorest person.

The prime culprit in causing contemporary social inequality seems to be merit.

The association of poverty with progress is the enigma of our times.

So long as all the increased wealth which modern progress brings, goes but to build up great fortunes, to increase luxury, and make sharper the contest between the House of Have and the House of Want, progress is not real and cannot be permanent.

Ninety percent of the racial debate is really about economics.

Poverty divide not only nations but societies within nations.

The middle class of this country, our historic backbone and our best hope for a strong society in the future, is losing its place at the table.

This society cannot go forward, the way we have been going forward, where the gap between the rich and the poor keeps growing.

The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Too late.

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

This country is very good at creating wealth, but not very good at distributing it.