Paul Tonko Quotes

At a time when families are incredibly squeezed, it's essential that we provide a living wage for people who work hard and that women realize equal pay for the work they're doing.

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

Workers want to be paid an honest, fair wage for the work they do. They want to be able to provide for their families by being justly compensated for their part in helping grow the U.S. economy. They deserve to be able to put food on the table and receive health care and other benefits.

Those of us in the Congress must confront and overcome Republican intransigence to increasing the minimum wage, extending unemployment insurance and protecting food stamps.

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.

If a man or a woman puts in an honest day's work, they should to be able to earn a living wage.

We must use every tool at our disposal to lift the living standards of low-wage employees.

When I travel around the country and talk about the need to raise the minimum wage or expand access to paid leave, I often talk about the need for us to reject false choices.

We must ensure not only that everyone receives equal pay for equal work, but that they have the opportunity to do equal work.

I'm not sure there's another way to help move more people out of poverty than to raise the minimum wage.

I know this: Secretary Clinton will fight for working families, and that's what I'm going to do as well.

For people to escape poverty for good, we need better policies that support work, strengthen families, and move America forward.

The promise of welfare and welfare regulation mean that there is no incentive to accept jobs that do not meet basic standards.

Let's also, my friends, let's raise the minimum wage and support the 5 for 15 so you don't live in poverty.

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.

President Obama is also standing up for women in North Carolina and across our country. He has helped women fight for equal pay for equal work; he has fought to guarantee that women have access to quality, affordable health care, including making sure that insurance plans cover birth control with no out-of-pocket cost.

You destroy the initiative of the working people if they don't feel they have a fighting chance to be a part of the American Dream.

I am working hard to ensure that working families can continue to afford to live in our city.

Most of America doesn't pay dishwashers $10.

I want a society that provides decent jobs for those who can work and decent security for those can't.

Taxing poor families runs counter to decades of effort to help people lift themselves out of poverty through work.

In the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works a full time job should have to live in poverty. That's a fundamental value proposition, an article of faith in our country that I know an overwhelming majority of Americans agree on.

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.

It's great that Maryland is tied for having the lowest wage gap between our working men and women of any state in the nation, but there's more work to do to eliminate that gap entirely.

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