Chris Murphy Quotes

Improving the outlook for U.S workers isn't about creating millions of minimum-wage jobs. It is about creating sustainable, skilled employment that allows Americans to earn a fair wage with benefits that allows them to pay for housing and food on the table and sustain a middle-class lifestyle.

What Is a Good Job? It is a job for which the worker is qualified and for which he has been prepared. It is one which will not enslave him for life, but which shall employ him for as long a time as he needs it in order to win his own economic safety for life. It is one which will reward him lavishly — not in wages or in any form of money payments since money is far too unstable a medium for such purposes — but it shall reward him with due amounts of the actual things and services which he requires in the carrying on of his daily existence.

I think I'd work on making sure that Canadians have opportunities to find good jobs, to grow, to gain stability in terms of pensions. The reality is that Canadians don't feel that our economy is working for us.

In short, avoiding the scourge of unemployment may have less to do with chasing after growth and more to do with building an economy of care, craft and culture. And in doing so, restoring the value of decent work to its rightful place at the heart of society.

Working lives are for the state to influence. Unemployment makes people unhappy. So does instability.

Full employment means not only jobs--but productive jobs. Americans do not regard jobs that pay substandard wages as productive jobs.

We need to be a party saying, 'We are not going to be happy until we get those $30, $40, $50 an hour jobs back for working-class people.'

Democrats should be getting high-fives from sanitation truck drivers - that is what should be happening in America.

The key to a vibrant middle class is an abundance of jobs that pay enough so that workers can provide for themselves and their families, enjoy leisure time, save for retirement and pay for their children's education so they can grow up and earn even more than their parents.

Americans want jobs. They want affordable health insurance. They want an education.

I believe that if we are going to create jobs in this country, then let's create jobs that will absolutely put the working-class people at work to the point where they have one job. They don't have to work three because they have to work Wendy's, McDonald's, and Walmart to survive.

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.

Jobs mean freedom for workers to support their families.

I'm worried about that man or woman sitting around - the coffee table tonight or in their kitchen talking about how are we going to get to work. How are we going to have the dignity to take care of our family.

I don't know of a Democrat - whether they're a conservative, a centrist or a liberal Democrat - that doesn't think that it's important to have quality jobs that pay decent wages so that families can support themselves, so that they can have the dignity of being able to afford health care, put money aside for pension, buy a home.

When you grow up with a mother who has to wash dishes and clean hotel rooms, you know the importance of having a job, and you can't be without a job for any length of time, or you will be without anything.

I won't stop fighting to make life better for working Americans and give those who are just trying to find a decent job the opportunity to do so.

People who go to work every day and perform the services essential to keeping our economy functioning deserve to live above the poverty level.

Young people deserve stable employment opportunities and not mountains of debt. When young people can access the middle class, America is strengthened.

People are still willing to do an honest day's work. The trouble is they want a week's pay for it.

My whole purpose really is to try to help working families to find better jobs and get better benefits and look out for the little guy.

We want work and we want honest jobs. Our minds and our hands will be our keep!

The best antidote to poverty remains simple - a paycheck. Policies like paid family leave, workplace flexibility and affordable quality childcare can make the difference for two-parent or single-parent working families who struggle to make ends meet.

There is no social program in this country that is as important as a good job that pays well, that gives someone an opportunity to go to work, have some security, have benefits, and take care of their family and have a good life.

I reject the idea that any job is too hard or too dirty for American workers to do. American workers just expect and demand to be paid a decent wage.