Susan Burton Quotes

Programs like food stamps, unemployment insurance, Medicaid, and job retraining help Americans get back on their feet when they are down and out and laid off through no fault of their own.

Private-sector firms are increasingly active in the prison industry and they and the militantly unionized correctional officers, almost all unskilled labor, constantly lead public demands for more criminal statutes and more draconian penalties.

Social safety-net spending is an important form of public funding that helps offset disparities in family resources for children.

I wrote my thesis on welfare policy.

For women who turn to welfare, Big Brother becomes Husband.

Without Social Security, poverty rates for African American seniors would more than double.

I'm involved in the work around prison rights in general.

Without in any way minimising the economic and psychological blow that people experience when they lose their jobs, the unemployed in affluent countries still have a safety net, in the form of social security payments, and usually free healthcare and free education for their children. They also have sanitation and safe drinking water.

When I look at Social Security, I consider it the most important social program in the United States, arguably the most successful program in the world.

There's a lot of people out now around America who depend on checks from their fellow taxpayers being in the mailbox every day.

I never need to go far if I need a reminder of how important Medicare and Social Security are to Missouri's seniors. My mom, Betty Anne, is one of millions for whom these services provide a reliable safety net. Across the country, these protections are an integral part of sustaining millions of seniors' health and dignity.

The government is becoming the family of last resort.

It's critical - that the people that are benefiting today from Medicare and Social Security that they not see benefit reductions. It's awfully hard to tell someone who might be 82, that they've gotta go back to work, because their benefits are gonna be chopped. That's not gonna happen.

I was once a welfare recipient and am very aware of the successes and failures of this critical safety net. There are those that would have us believe that those receiving TANF benefits are lazy, shiftless, freeloaders who are just sitting around thinking of another way to suckle from the government teat.

Social Security is the widest accepted contract in our society.

What is the alternative to Social Security for those at the lower end of the income distribution whose personal savings by definition are not going to be that high? There really isn’t any.

I’m really not concerned about the very poor. They have a safety net.

I believe in a safety net. I believe one of the responsibilities of the Federal Government is a safety net.

Even in the United States, 'you have a sort of welfare state, even if you don't want to admit it -- you don't allow people to die on the street.

Being reliant on legal aid is probably inconceivable to most of us. But this is no different from other branches of the welfare state established at the same time as our legal aid system - being diagnosed with a major illness and needing the NHS, or losing a job and needing the support of social security.

I have never articulated a specific number, but I think a nation as great as we are, that professes to favor freedom and liberty, that we would find a way to evidence that in our criminal justice system by achieving what we know we can achieve: a reduction in crime, a reduction in taxpayer expense, and a reduction in the prison population.

Bill Clinton championed discriminatory laws against formerly incarcerated people that have kept millions of Americans locked in a cycle of poverty and desperation.

I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs a repair, I'll fix it.

I think most Americans believe in a basic social safety net.

The stabilizing influence of the modern social welfare state emerged only after World War II, nearly 200 years on from the 18th-century beginnings of the Industrial Revolution.