Edmund Phelps Quotes

I am open-eyed about what poverty does to people.

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.

Inflation is taking up the poverty line, and poverty is not just economic but defined by way of health and education.

My goal is to eradicate poverty. I think we can't have equality until we eradicate poverty.

Whatever people's backgrounds or values, a society where more and more people face a daily struggle to house, clothe and even feed themselves and their families cannot possibly be the answer.

I would say that many of the characters in my stories do not live in true poverty - they are not out on the street; they are not wondering if there will be anything to eat in the next week. They are people who are at the lower echelons of the economic strata.

Poverty is the absence of all human rights. The frustrations, hostility and anger generated by abject poverty cannot sustain peace in any society.

Having enough to eat, being able to educate your children, have reasonably stable employment, and being able to live in a society which isn't collapsing around you-all of these things have been generally eroded.

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.

As society advances the standard of poverty rises.

The situation in the United States is becoming more dire for average ordinary Americans and the last thing we need to do is to spend money on death, destruction and war.

There is nothing worse than being ashamed of parsimony or poverty.

I think if you touch ordinary people, they're simply ordinary people, the way they've always been. They work hard, they don't have really as much as they should.

A considerable share of the world's population still cannot afford comfortable housing, education and quality health care.

Very few people can afford to be poor.

Does anyone really believe it is possible to make even the most basic ends meet on $5.15 an hour?

Poverty affects people of all races.

There are many Asian-Americans who are living in poverty, especially our senior citizens.

Presidents and prime ministers, whether they live in the rich or the poor world, are insulated and isolated from the devastating impact of global poverty. They read the statistics, but they rarely witness at first hand the misery and degradation of life on a dollar a day.

No one should ever be forced to choose between food and education, or medicine and shelter when they don't have the resources. It's very unfair.

Right now, America's middle class is struggling to meet their basic needs.

Poverty doesn't imply necessarily violence.

I've been working on issues of poverty for more than 20 years, and so it's ironic that the problem that and question that I most grapple with is how you actually define poverty. What does it mean?

To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.

People might not protest for overtly political or social causes, but when they can't feed themselves and their family, they will take to the streets.