Tim Wise Quotes

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.

Any health care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized and humane must - must - redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate. Excellent healthcare is by definition re-distributional.

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

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

The difference between rich and poor is becoming more extreme, and as income inequality widens the wealth gap in major nations, education, health and social mobility are all threatened.

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.

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.

A New Dealer regrets poverty and deplores the fact that it is necessary for society to slough off its misfits as an individual sheds his impurities and his diseases. But New Dealers believe that human want and human distress should be prevented or at least ameliorated.

The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.

Integration in the fields of education, housing, transportation and public accommodations will be of limited extent and duration so long as fundamental economic inequality along racial lines persist.

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

We used to wage war on poverty—not poor people.

We do not postpone the participation of the lower classes of our people in the profits of economic enterprise, and in other countries, they do postpone it. In the long run, I think our policy is better, and we stand by it.

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.

The social justice movement of the 21st century is economic development.

Governance should be designed as an equalizer. Democrats are more inclined towards working families and those who are struggling for a better life.

I'm not suggesting that social scientists stop teaching and investigating classic topics like monopoly power, racial profiling and health inequality. But everyone knows that monopoly power is bad for markets, that people are racially biased and that illness is unequally distributed by social class.

If we cannot provide excellent educational opportunities to all children, safe communities, quality health coverage, or robust and fair avenues towards wealth creation, then our nation will increasingly be in peril.

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

We need to make sure middle-class people are able to pay the bills. We need to make sure that poor people don't starve. Those are values, too.

I contend that, in spite of all that might be said about Watergate, Richard Nixon was good for the poor people of America.

Haiti's economy cannot be built by and benefit just a privileged few. It must be built by and benefit all Haitians.

Economic issues are a subset of social justice. Social justice is unimaginable without economic justice. Isn't that obvious?

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

Economic growth doesn't mean anything if it leaves people out.