P. Chidambaram Quotes

The great responsibility that we have today is to put the poor and the near poor back on front of the American agenda.

I contend that, in spite of all that might be said about Watergate, Richard Nixon was good for the poor people of America.

Prohibiting Poverty

Nobody talks about the poor. Everybody talks about the middle class and just kinda want to ignore that the poor exist. And you cannot ignore that they exist if you want to help them.

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.

Poverty must be reduced not only for reasons of moral and justice, but also of security.

The central issue of our time remains the fact that the rich are getting richer and the poor, poorer.

The best social programs we've had in this country are those that have united the middle class and the poor.

Preventing poverty beats curing it.

It is unjust to let any starve, when we think it just to limit the wages of the poor, so as they can lay up nothing against the time of their impotency and want of work.

There never can be equality of rewards or possessions so long as the human plan contains varied talents and differing degrees of industry and thrift, but ours ought to be a country free from the great blotches of distressed poverty.

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

The poor don't want some small life. They don't want to game the system. They want to contribute, and they want to thrive. But poverty reduces people born for better things.

And I do not intend to lead a state where we simply tolerate poverty in our communities.

Wealth does not trickle down to the poor. Oxfam knows this, the IMF knows this, the World Bank knows this. Poor people have always known this.

Economic growth doesn't mean anything if it leaves people out.

What many economists fail to understand is that poor people are no less concerned about improving their lot and that of their children than rich people are.

The poverty program was not designed to eliminate poverty.

It would be nice if the poor were to get even half of the money that is spent in studying them.

There was never a war on poverty. Maybe there was a skirmish on poverty.

Richness in the world is a result of other people's poverty. We should begin to shorten the abyss between haves and have-nots.

In America today, we are nearer a final triumph over poverty than is any other land.

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

Our main task is not to see that people of great wealth add to it, but that those without much money have a greater chance to earn some.

The poor pay more, and that's one of the reasons people get trapped at the bottom of the economic ladder.