Harold Ford Jr. Quotes

I'm not averse to helping Wall Street when it helps Main Street.

When our markets work, people throughout our economy benefit - Americans seeking to buy a car or buy a home, families borrowing to pay for college, innovators borrowing on the strength of a good idea for a new product or technology, and businesses financing investments that create new jobs.

Equality begins with economic empowerment.

Being able to save, make non-cash payments, send or receive remittances, get credit, or get insurance can be instrumental in raising living standards and helping businesses prosper. It helps people to invest more in education or health care.

This is a simple change that will provide a huge financial boost for many Americans, particularly low- to moderate-income families. It is an important step in making sure we do everything we can to encourage all Americans to save and plan for the future.

The interesting thing about me is that I was born poor, and I've lived rich and I've lived poor, and I know how to do both. People think rich is better. I don't know.

What many economists fail to understand is that poor people are no less concerned about improving their lot and that of their children than rich people are.

We are one of the richest countries in the world, and there is absolutely no reason why anyone should have to live in poverty.

Money is kind of a base subject. Like water, food, air and housing, it affects everything yet for some reason the world of academics thinks it's a subject below their social standing.

Ultimately, your economy has to be measured in the real eyes of real people, not simply in statistics that appear in newspapers about the unemployment rate and so forth.

Our main task is not to see that people of great wealth add to it, but that those without much money have a greater chance to earn some.

Share the Wealth

It’s a very difficult cultural issue. Why don’t Americans save?

At the bottom of education, at the bottom of politics, even at the bottom of religion, there must be for our race, economic independence.

By 1909, only about 16 percent of Americans had [Bank] savings accounts … While over half of all New Englanders had savings accounts, the number in the West and South was miniscule.

A tale of two Americas is emerging: one weighed down by debt and facing de minimus economic growth and another brimming with opportunity and nimble to invest in the future

I'm a capitalist, and I believe that universal basic income is necessary for capitalism to continue.

Expanding the EITC can get us close to a universal basic minimum income.

Universal basic income is not a solution in search of a problem - it is the obvious solution that has been in front of us for years. It only requires us to have the vision, empathy and courage to adopt it for the American people before it is too late.

The voices of economic freedom, personal responsibility, and self-determination are virtually nonexistent in Hispanic communities and media.

Saving for the future shouldn't be a privilege for the wealthy.

What I always say is that money doesn't have colour. It doesn't matter whether you are from Africa or anywhere in the world. The colour of money is the same.

What good is a high GDP if some, or even many, Americans are left behind?

The claim that if people had a basic income they would become lazy is prejudiced and has been refuted many times in many places.

For myself, I never thought that I'd ever be able to even buy a house. Sometimes when you don't have it, and you're not surrounded my entrepreneurs, you don't think about it.