Robert Reich Quotes

When we lift the wage floor, it not only betters the lives of those whose wages are directly affected, it also lifts the economy as a whole.

Raising the minimum wage to $10.10 will benefit about 28 million workers across the country. And it will help businesses, too - raising the wage will put more money in people's pockets, which they will pump back into the economy by spending it on goods and services in their communities.

Full-time workers earning the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 only earn about $14,500 a year in wages - below the poverty line for a family of two. That's unacceptable.

At the current $5.15 an hour, the federal minimum wage has become a poverty wage. A full-time worker with one child lives below the official poverty line.

The minimum wage now in our country, I think we've set that, so there are a lot of people have benefited from it in our country, but I think we ought to review how much it ought to be, and whether or not we ought to have increases in the minimum wage.

There are very few people at the decision-making table to argue for minimum-wage workers. Very few people.

Now all of you know that right now the federal minimum wage is a starvation wage.

The value of the minimum wage shouldn't be eroded, and it has been.

Raising the minimum wage means raising the living wage - and that's good news for Ohio.

The national minimum wage has not been increased in 9 years. By year's end, 21 States across America will have a minimum wage exceeding the Federal minimum wage.

Raising the minimum wage isn't just pro-worker; it's pro-economic growth.

Today, the Federal minimum wage purchases less than it has at any point in the last 50 years. Let me repeat: The Federal minimum wage purchases less than it has at any point in the last 50 years.

We have to raise the minimum wage.

The person earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 isn't going out to eat at restaurants. They're not taking piano lessons. They're not going to the gym or the yoga studio. They're not sending mom flowers on Mother's day. What good is this person in the economy? If you raise it to $15 an hour, they're doing all of those things.

Raising the minimum wage seems to all economists to, at the very least, fail to 'raise' employment, and we'd all like to see better inclusion of low-skilled workers into good-paying jobs.

When we talk about the kind of folks whose lives will be made better by raising the minimum wage, we're not talking about a couple teenagers earning extra spending money to supplement their allowance. We're talking about providers and breadwinners. Working Americans with bills to pay and mouths to feed.

When I started in the business, the minimum wage was $1.25. I've seen an enormous number of wage increases. Basically, it applies evenly to everyone in the business.

Raising the minimum wage is the right thing to do, but it's a popular thing to do as well.

The bottom line is that five million low-income Americans working full time for minimum wage, deserve a raise.

People against the minimum wage say that many workers will lose their jobs. I haven’t ever met a minimum wage worker who didn’t say “Go for it!”

We have faster growth rates for low wage industries than for high wage industries

In 1980, the top 10 percent earned 2.7 times as much as the bottom 10 percent.; in 2013, the top 10 percent took home 3.7 times as much. This is because for decades, the median wage growth has lagged behind the average wage growth.

It takes so long for the folks who are earning minimum wage to finally see a little bit of a rise... that it takes a little nudge, I think, from government.

Minimum wage laws have never worked in terms of having the middle class attain more prosperity.

If the price of a burger goes up 5 cents, and the minimum wage that you have received is going up from $7.25 to $15 an hour - and there have been a number of studies that document just how much the price of a burger might go up if you increase the minimum wage. You match the costs, and the benefits far outweigh the costs.