Michelle Rhee Quotes

Sometimes the lack of substantive freedoms relates directly to economic poverty

A family living at the poverty level is unlikely to be able to afford a computer at home. Even with a computer, access to the Internet is another significant expense. A child might borrow a book from a public library; but it is not possible to take a computer home.

It's hard for me to understand how working-class people support themselves.

The children of the unemployed achieve less in school and appear to have reduced long-term earnings prospects.

Poverty itself is not so bad as the poverty thought. It is the conviction that we are poor and must remain so that is fatal.

The children of those people [long term unemployed] have less education, earn less, have higher unemployment. The problems are visited upon the children

… perceptions of poverty have gone up because there’s been rising inequality.

Schools alone are not to blame for underachievement. The breakdown of the family, poverty, and decaying cities with eroding tax bases have made a good public school education nearly impossible in many parts of the country.

I'm not sticking up for white kids - I'm going to have a barrage of hate mail - but it's true. If you're poor, you're really poor.

When you live in a poor neighborhood, you are living in an area where you have poor schools. When you have poor schools, you have poor teachers. When you have poor teachers, you get a poor education. When you get a poor education, you can only work in a poor-paying job. And that poor-paying job enables you to live again in a poor neighborhood. So, it's a very vicious cycle.

If you are low income in the United States, you have a higher chance of going to jail than getting a 4-year degree.

The greatest hardship of poverty is that it tends to make men ridiculous.

The traditional story of economists has been to say education explains what the returns are to school. I say, 'Okay, that's fine, but what explains the education? How much is just a matter of my giving you a poor kid versus a rich kid?'

I avoid going through places where there's too much poverty.

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

One of the strangest things about life is that the poor, who need the money the most, are the ones that never have it.

There are cultural reasons, economic competitiveness reasons. There are a lot of reasons why people are in poverty. The difference today is that increasingly they are in perpetual poverty.

Very few people can afford to be poor.

For people on social assistance, the loss of free dental care, prescription drugs and subsidized housing can greatly outweigh additional income from working. We've all heard the stories.

Where I came from, people couldn't afford to go to the theatre.

When someone can't afford to wear shoes, it's not just about them not having shoes on that day. It's about a cycle of poverty that exists within their community.

It is widely known that the effects of childhood poverty follow children through adolescence and into adulthood.

The goatherds were the poorest people of Spain. Probably, they were the richest.

Like a lot of black people, I grew up straight po'. Wasn't no question about whether we was po', either. If you really wanted to know, all you had to do was look in our refrigerator.