Segolene Royal Quotes

You cannot have a strong, resilient economy unless you have a strong resilient middle class.

Unless you’re at the very top, you need a more equitable economy.

Poverty is poverty. At the end of the day, people want a job.

President Obama believes that income inequality is one of the most pressing matters facing the nation. If we are going to be a country that provides ladders of opportunity and believes in a thriving middle class, then we have to raise the minimum wage.

We want an economic team, Paul Krugman and Robert Kuttner, Joseph Steiglitz's people and others, who say, you know what? We're sophisticated economists but we're concerned about poor and working people.

We cannot run a democracy without a strong middle class.

Politicians should tell working Americans what they need to hear, not what they want to hear. And what they need to hear is that it is possible for all Americans to have good lives, even if the can’t all have good jobs.

From the very beginning, I've talked about how we're going to strengthen the middle class in this country.

We have an economy that's really geared toward rewarding the investor class. What are we doing to make sure that people who want to have a middle-class life are able to keep up?

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

Let's take care of the necessities first: give people jobs, and find a way to get us out of poverty.

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.

One thing we're going to focus on is the middle class and the crushing prices and stagnant wages they're facing. What motivates me is looking at my 3-year-old son and thinking about what we're passing on to him and his future wife and their future kids.

But I don't think the Democratic Party is at eye level with the middle class.

We continue to recognize the greater ability of some to earn more than others. But we do assert that the ambition of the individual to obtain for him a proper security is an ambition to be preferred to the appetite for great wealth and great power.

I am a social democrat - I believe in pursuing greater equality and tackling social justice - but... you can't do that unless you have got a strong economy, unless you have got a vibrant business base earning the wealth that makes that possible.

I worry about growing income inequality. But I worry even more that the discussion is too narrowly focused. I worry that our outrage at the top 1 percent is distracting us from the problem that we should really care about: how to create opportunities and ensure a reasonable standard of living for the bottom 20 percent.

Reducing poverty is in our own interest.

What makes this country different is that we have a great middle class.

A strong economy is perfectly consistent with concern for equity and economic justice.

For the first time in America's history, poverty is on the run.

If you work, you should not be poor.

I think the defining issue of our time is: Does the economic, social, and political system work for the middle class?

It is unjust to let any starve, when we think it just to limit the wages of the poor, so as they can lay up nothing against the time of their impotency and want of work.

We do not destroy ambition, nor do we seek to divide our wealth into equal shares on stated occasions. We continue to recognize the greater ability of some to earn more than others. But we do assert that the ambition of the individual to obtain for him and his a proper security, a reasonable leisure, and a decent living throughout life is an ambition to be preferred to the appetite for great wealth and great power.