Pramila Jayapal Quotes

The problem, gentlemen, is that Obama is right: The promise of upward mobility is dying in America, and no amount of political demagoguery will fix it.

Whoever rises to deliver the inaugural Address of 2013 will speak to a nation in which the American Dream is under profound economic and cultural pressure. This is perhaps best measured by the state of the middle class.

I like globalization; I want to say it works, but it is hard to say that when six hundred million people are slipping backwards.

The association of poverty with progress is the enigma of our times.

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

The idea of solving as huge and long-term a problem as inequality - which, for my money, is the biggest single problem we have here at home - just never gets serious concern from both sides.

As Washington prospers, workers suffer.

The hollowing out of the middle class is a problem common to all Western industrialized economies. Maybe we should work together to solve it.

Clearly, America has no shortage of metaphorical opportunities for the poor.

We cannot afford to leave the poor behind.

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.

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

Far less wealthy industrialized countries have committed to end child poverty, while the United States is sliding backwards. We can do better. We must demand that our leaders do better.

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

Remove poverty from politics.

There is an increase in inequality in the early stages of development.

Economic development has a reverse gear.

Equality of opportunity as we have known it no longer exists… we are steering a steady course toward economic oligarchy, if we are not there already”

As income inequality increases, social mobility falls.

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

That certain groups do much better in America than others—as measured by income, occupational status, test scores and so on – is difficult to talk about.

No society is healthy when the gap between the rich and the poor is growing.

The hard-working Americans, the people who made this country so great, they've been left in the dust.

The middle-class ladder has rungs that no longer exist for many trying to climb higher. Instead, for too many, in too many places, their chore is simply trying to hang on.

For too many years, we, as a country, have suffered from a poverty of aspiration.