Barack Obama Quotes

Workers on the edge of poverty are essential to America’s prosperity, but their well-being is not treated as an integral part of the whole. Instead, the forgotten wage a daily struggle to keep themselves from falling over the cliff. It is time to be ashamed.

Anyone who supported Bernie Sanders who thinks we should raise the minimum wage, who thinks that we should have universal health care coverage, who thinks that the wealthy have not paid their fair share, and I could go on and on, would certainly not find that Donald Trump's views are in line with theirs.

This is why moral uneasiness is destined to become even more acute. It is obvious that a fundamental defect, or rather a series of defects, indeed a defective machinery is at the root of contemporary economics and materialistic civilization, which does not allow the human family to break free from such radically unjust situations.

The problems of health care can be solved if we stop giving tax cuts to those who have the most, and start making health care affordable for those working harder and harder for too little.

Nobody who works 40 hours a week should be living in poverty.

I think drugs affect poor people and people of color more than anyone.

We need a world where people do not have to live in fear of the economic repercussions of getting sick or losing their home or job. Where every child gets to fulfil their potential. Where corporations pay their fair share of taxes and work for the good of the majority, not just their shareholders.

To me, I know that if we could pass the Civil Rights Act of '64 over 50 years ago, then we can pass Justice for All Civil Rights Act. We can pass Medicare for All.

Now, instead of loading up your jalopy and heading for California, you take a second, badly paid job; 'The Grapes of Wrath' has turned into 'Nickel and Dimed.'

I grew up in a family where my parents worked full-time and still found themselves and their six children trapped like so many of the working poor.

There's a lot of journalism about poverty, but sometimes it just helps to see that there's a real person who becomes a real mom, who is working with unsustainable wages that could eventually destroy her.

I worked on minimum wage; I didn't go to college out of school. I worked multiple jobs, and it's probably not something Sen. Hagan's not had to worry about because we grew up in very different life circumstances.

Let us never allow ourselves to think that poverty is an excuse for an invitation to totalitarianism, and if we should be tempted to think as much, let us remind ourselves that totalitarianism not only extinguishes liberty but institutionalises poverty as well

I think that if you have a single payer system and an opt-out for people who want to pay more [for better service, etc.], I think it would be better - and I think we'll eventually get there. It wouldn't be better at the top - [our current system] is the best in the world at the top. But the waste in the present system is awesome and we do get some very perverse incentives.

The greatest evils and the worst of crimes is poverty; our first duty, a duty to which every other consideration should be sacrificed, is not to be poor.

I think we've set the bar with respect to the notion that it is possible to provide health care for people. Now I know that the incoming Congress and administration talks about repealing it. But we've set a bar that shows that this can be done. And that core principle is one that the majority of Americans, including supporters of Donald Trump believe in.

We call for healthcare as a human right through Medicare for all.

I firmly believe that the Democrats' message of inclusion and opportunity resonates everywhere. When we talk about health care as a right and not a privilege, and the impact of the repeal efforts, that resonates everywhere, because everybody in every ZIP code has benefited in one way, shape or form, and frankly, in terms of under-performance, I think we have all too frequently tended to take some of our core constituencies for granted.

America is supposed to be the richest and most powerful nation and we don't have health care for everybody.

The impact of all these restrictions is on poor women, because women who have means, if their state doesn't provide access, another state does. ... It makes no sense as a national policy to promote birth only among poor people.

It is my aspiration that health finally will be seen not as a blessing to be wished for, but as a human right to be fought for.

I can spare a dime, brother, but in these morally inflationary times, a dime goes a lot farther if it's demanding work rather than adding to the indignity of relief.

After 100 years of trying, finally we passed health care for all Americans as a right for all - not just a privilege for a few. It honored the vows of our Founders: Of life, a healthier life; liberty; the freedom to pursue our own happinesses. ... We knew that ... this bill was ironclad constitutionally.

Society and Government should together give priority to the poorest of poor and make efforts to provide affordable health services.

What shall I give my children? who are poor, / Who are adjudged the leastwise of the land...