Stephen F. Lynch Quotes

The modern economy isn't about the redistribution of wealth, it's about the redistribution of time.

Unfortunately, we have to dial down low-skilled immigration. We have to recognize that there is more unemployment among the lesser-skilled workers than among the most-skilled workers.

The family wage has been eroded by the same developments that have promoted consumerism as a way of life.

The best solution to income inequality is providing a high-quality education for everybody. In our highly technological, globalized economy, people without education will not be able to improve their economic situation.

One-third of the people in the United States promote, while the other two-thirds provide.

Since NAFTA was put in place, Mexico has lost 1.9 million jobs and most Mexicans' real wages have fallen.

We have concentrated wealth and capital to such a degree that the vast majority of us don't have the discretionary dollars to make our economy go and grow.

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.

The increase in inequality in income is a longtime trend, but the pressure on middle- and low-income workers is going up rapidly. Especially if they live in an area where there are high housing and gas prices, like California.

Globalization has redefined the competition for employment and incomes in the United States. Tradeoffs will have to be made between the two.

In the matter of labor, whether common or skilled, the white artisan has no chance to compete with Orientals upon their own soil, or—except in the manufactures wholly depending upon the applied sciences—upon any other soil. White labor has never been able to compete on equal terms with Oriental labor.

I agree that income disparity is the great issue of our time. It is even broader and more difficult than the civil rights issues of the 1960s. The '99 percent' is not just a slogan. The disparity in income has left the middle class with lowered, not rising, income, and the poor unable to reach the middle class.

In a perfect world, people don't have to move to another country to get a higher wage. Ultimately, they need only be able to participate in producing output that is sold internationally.

The income disparity is a huge issue. And I think that the only solution to this - there is no easy solution - are fundamental changes. That the world is changing quicker than our policies are changing. And we need the kinds of policies that will let us have a competitive economy going forward.

Trade has helped the economy grow. Simultaneously, a sizable number of Americans haven't shared in that bounty, and if we don't pay attention to their concerns, all the political favor for open markets will dry up.

What I want to do is create jobs that make the minimum wage irrelevant.

There is no question that we, as a country, need to deal with economic inequality across the country, and we need to make sure we have good-paying jobs for everyone.

The hope is that we'll continue to create jobs for the vast majority of people. But if the situation arises that this is less and less the case, then we need to rethink, how do we make sure that everybody can make a living?

The fact is that during the post-1989 heyday of globalization optimism, political and business elites did not think enough about the prospect - plainly predicted in economic theory - that trade would harm some people even while leaving society as a whole better off. The result was overpromised benefits and inadequate adjustment plans.

The trickle-down experiment that began in the Reagan years failed America's middle class. Sure, the rich are doing great. Giant corporations are doing great. Lobbyists are doing great. But we need an economy where everyone else who works hard gets a shot at doing great!

The reason that we are becoming less equal is because of the greater requirements, secure requirements, for a good job. This goes back to the '80s basically, this started changing as globalization and the IT revolution merged, and each started to drive the other.

One of the major forces driving the decline in wages and the concentration of wealth at the top is the offshoring of American jobs overseas - reducing wages not only in manufacturing but also across the economy.

If you are unskilled and uneducated, your job is going south. Skilled workers, educated people are going to do fine ’cause those are the kinds of jobs Nafta is going to create. If we are going to start rewarding no skills and stupid people, I’m serious, let the unskilled jobs that take absolutely no knowledge whatsoever to do - let stupid and unskilled Mexicans do that work.

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

I think poverty is the biggest challenge for Los Angeles and for many of our cities that have come back from the recession.