Arthur Lewis Quotes

As society advances the standard of poverty rises.

Nobody in America lives at the survival level, Most people in the world would love to live the way poor Americans live.

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.

I don't think any of us ran for the United States Senate to preside over the lowering of the American standard of living.

Relative poverty acknowledges that the definition of poverty should move with the times.

We need to find ways to elevate the expectations, particularly of those individuals who may start off on a lower socioeconomic rung, who might be seen as disadvantaged. But, you know, the reason I say be seen as disadvantaged, it's because life is so short, and there's so much that can change.

People who work full-time in America should not have to live in poverty - simple as that. Too many jobs don't pay enough to get by, let alone get ahead. Too many people are finding the rungs on the ladder of opportunity further and further apart.

It's hard to bring up your children on benefit. It's easier if you can do part- time work, or even full-time work, and actually have a better standard of living, and that's the direction in which we are going.

It is unacceptable that someone can work full time - and work hard - and not be able to lift themselves out of poverty.

In the 1960s, a minimum wage job would keep a family of three afloat.

Raising the minimum wage means we have workers paying more in to support the Social Security system.

If you work, you should not be poor.

Liberty requires opportunity to make a living - a living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives man not only enough to live by, but something to live for.

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.

Upward mobility across classes peaked in the U.S. in the late 19th century. Most of the gains of the 20th century were achieved en masse; it wasn't so much a phenomenon of great numbers of people rising from one class to the next as it was standards of living rising sharply for all classes. You didn't have to be exceptional to rise.

The poverty line in the U.S., for example, has nothing to do with the poverty line in India. It is a relative poverty line. It is reset from time to time but it is related to U.S. median income, so if I set that to be the absolute poverty line everyone in India would essentially be poor.

It is absolute poverty that you could end, but I think relative poverty is a whole other issue.

How can anyone live off of minimum wage?

Income inequity has to be addressed.

Thirteen thousand dollars a year is not enough to raise a family. That's not enough to pay your bills and save for their future. That's barely enough to provide for even the most basic needs.

While a handful of countries and a small number of people are leading ample life, dozens of countries and billions of people in Africa, Asia and Latin America are being left in absolute poverty.

House Republican leadership have refused to allow a clean minimum wage vote. Close to 15 million Americans will be affected if we did this. Do Republicans really expect a family to live on less than $11,000 a year?

Anyone who's tried to pay a heating bill, fill a prescription, or simply buy groceries knows all too well that the current minimum wage does not cut the mustard.

When you talk about war on poverty it doesn't mean very much; but if you can show to some degree this sort of thing then you can show a great deal more of how people are living and a very great percentage of our people today.

And living in Australia I am relatively well off.