Robert J. Gordon Quotes

Demography is changing us as we are older societies, we're living longer. How the generations balance each other out, how that affects education and health care.

The difference between rich and poor is becoming more extreme, and as income inequality widens the wealth gap in major nations, education, health and social mobility are all threatened.

Demography drives the economy.

Low interest rates are usually attributed to low inflation, weak economic growth and super easy monetary policy. But there's another deep-seated factor that doesn't get much attention: demographics.

More than ever before, Americans are suffering from back problems: back taxes, back rent, back auto payments.

Americans are falling out of the middle class, not into it. And they deserve relief. I absolute support extending the Bush tax cuts for those who work the hardest and invest the most in our economy - the real drivers of American growth, the middle class.

We have a large underclass in Britain, and a fairly low standard of education. Our best universities are extremely good, but a very significant proportion of the British population that comes out of compulsory schooling with very low standards of education.

What is a permanent loan but a mortgage upon the wealth and industry of the country? It is the only form of indebtedness, as experience has shown, by which heavy and durable encumbrance can be laid upon the community.

When inequality gets too extreme, then it becomes useless for growth, and it can even become bad because it tends to lead to high perpetuation of inequality over time and low mobility.

If there are healthy - and growing - numbers of people working and paying taxes, we are better able to pay the costs of people living longer.

Poverty affects people of all races.

You need some inequality to grow... but extreme inequality is not only useless but can be harmful to growth because it reduces mobility and can lead to political capture of our democratic institutions.

Every industry is going to be affected (by the aging population). This creates tremendous opportunities and tremendous challenges.

Rising inequality is toxic to growth. High levels of inequality exclude people - both as innovators and customers - diminishing both innovation and demand.

The U. S. is suffering greatly by the defects of the educational system .... we are producing an underclass.

An imbalance between the rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.

We still have two public school systems in the United States: One for the haves and one for the have-nots.

Some men will be always able to pay more for their children's education than others; and that those children will, inevitably, win in the struggle of life.

We still have two separate public school systems in this country. It’s not [any longer] based on race; it’s based on economics, but that’s related to race.

The changes taking place in the age structure of the countries around the world are stunning.

Social mobility is much less today in America than it historically has been, and it is almost as low as England, the lowest of the industrial countries of Europe.

In the first phase of economic development you have rising inequality.

Only 28 percent of American adults have a college degree, but most of us in this group find ourselves in workplaces in social milieus where almost everybody has been to college. A social chasm is opening up between those in educated society and those in non-educated society, and you are beginning to see vast behavioral differences between the two groups.

Americans have historically been more willing than Europeans to tolerate high inequality levels if accompanied by strong economic growth and a healthy middle class.

The taxpayer base in the suburbs is going to be increasingly made up of an older cohort. They don’t care about schools. They care about making traffic signs readable and supporting services that will drive older people around when they stop being able to drive.