Elizabeth Edwards Quotes

Bankruptcy exposes the economic vulnerability and insecurity of middle class women.

Most people with good jobs, middle-class occupations, what have you, are only one pitfall away from social embarrassment and destitution. It's so precarious. Even salaried people in the West now feel this sense of being trapped, not having the freedom to strike out.

A broke nation is a weak nation.

If you're one car accident away from poverty, you're on a high wire without a safety net. And that's a challenging proposition.

I have a fear of being broke. That's what I have a fear of. I'm not kidding.

I've been broke my whole life, you get what I'm saying? I'm scared of the bank.

A lot of people's circumstances can change very, very quickly, and people can move jobs, relationships can break down, something else could happen, and the next thing you know, you can't pay your rent, you can't get the support you require, and you're out on the street.

For, when you are approaching poverty, you make one discovery which outweighs some of the others. You discover boredom and mean complications and the beginnings of hunger, but you also discover the great redeeming feature of poverty: the fact that it annihilates the future. Within certain limits, it is actually true that the less money you have, the less you worry.

Middle income families with children are Australia’s new poor

I don't believe in pressure. Pressure is when you don't know where your next meal is coming from.

Now we've got lots of freedom and no money.

Every laborer, when possessing most strength and skill, and even when also exhibiting industry and general worth of character, and however healthy, and entirely free from family or other encumbrances, still is regarded by every poor-rate payer and by every parish official as a prospective pauper; or one who, though not yet chargeable to the parish, will surely become so thereafter, when his health fails, or old age approaches, if not much sooner. The most independent laborer regards himself in the same light of a pauper in a state of transition.

My mother was born into a solidly middle-class family, but, as all too many Americans understand, everything doesn't always go as planned - no matter how hard you work. She died on welfare. Without the support of the state, I shudder to think of where we would have ended up.

I have had many anxieties for our commonwealth, principally occasioned by the depreciation of our money.

I think the most stressful time of my life was when I was in New York, and I didn't have money to pay my rent.

Unemployment, low wages, and poverty discourage family formation and erode family stability, making it less likely that individuals will marry in the first place and more likely that their marriages will dissolve.

Our global economy is much more fragile than many of us realize.

We were under a lot of financial pressure when I was growing up.

The progressives like to talk a lot about poverty - and you should. However, it's the guys in the middle who have really been hurt by the global economy. The people at the bottom have been holding on to their jobs quite well, actually.

I've never felt fully able to sustain myself because I've run out of money many, many times, and it's been scary.

If you look at my life, I wasn't just poor; I was rich and poor.

Many families teeter on the edges, not qualifying for the little support on offer, unwilling to seek it for fear of drawing attention to a household barely holding the pieces together, or hit by unexpected bills.

That used to be one of my greatest fears growing up: my mom would get sick and then she wouldn't be able to go to work and then there is no food or money for rent.

The financial instability and sometimes insecurity that families feel, deeply motivates how they respond politically.

I know what it's like to have to put back food at the checkout line because you don't have enough money and those kinds of things.