Lori Lightfoot Quotes

Part of the middle class promise is that, after a lifetime of hard work, you'll be able to retire and enjoy the fruits of that labor. Medicare was established to secure that promise.

My parents are the last of the middle class. My father worked for the government designing sea mines. My mother was a substitute teacher. Together, they worked really only until they were sixty.

I have this cozy house here and I get three pensions from the States. I've done nicely.

Social Security is not just the foundation of America's retirement dignity and security, it ensures the economic stability and strength of our families and our state's economy.

We need to make certain the government has the tools to assure American workers they can put their savings—and their trust—into a system that will be there when they need it most.

Social Security has proved far more solvent and sound than anything Wall Street has produced.

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.

A secure retirement is one of the pillars of middle class life. For all too many Americans, however, that pillar needs more support.

The next generation is going to have to understand that Social Security is just one leg of a stool. We need to actually bring back that savings incentive, and the only way you're going to be able to do that is if you have a job.

Medicare and Social Security have created the healthiest and most financially secure generation of senior citizens in American history.

I believe a solid, really strong middle-class is the key to making the country in the best way.

If you asked anybody in my family, they would have very stridently proclaimed themselves middle class. My mother and father were separated, so he doesn't count.

Ten years ago I said, you know, my goal is to be able to get food on the table. What I'm trying to say by that is trying to create a vibrant, capable and effective middle class. The quicker and stronger that we can be able to do this, the easier it is for political reform to move forward.

When a man retires, his wife gets twice the husband but only half the income.

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.

Social Security not only helps Americans enjoy a secure retirement, it has also kept millions of Americans out of poverty.

With or without a Social Security fix, Americans don't have enough assets to retire on. There has to be a much larger debate.

America's real business leaders understand unless or until the middle class regains its footing and its faith, capitalism remains vulnerable.

If Republicans eliminate Medicare, America will become a country in which you can never retire - and once you physically can no longer work, you are desperately poor until you die.

The fine print in the President's Social Security proposal is that all present and future workers under age 55 will have their promised retirement benefits cut.

My dad never graduated high school. He was a printing salesman. We lived in a two-bedroom, one-bath house in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. We weren't rich - but we felt secure.

The No. 1 issue with women in this country is jobs, and the No. 2 issue is our national security. So, economic security, national security and retirement security.

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

Our Hispanic community needs to understand how important the Social Security system is for not only its retired citizens, but also its disabled workers.

We want to develop innovative ways to promote savings so more Americans can save for their future, but first we need to reject privatization schemes and work together to strengthen Social Security.