Jan Schakowsky Quotes

You and I can be busy, and we take a vacation from work. You can't take a break from being poor. You can't say, 'Hey I've had enough of worrying about money, I'm just going to be rich for a couple of weeks until I've recovered.'

Only people who can't draw money need belts.

The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time.

I couldn't do it at all. I was never really good at it, but I can't imagine what it can be like as a fortunate person not having to deal with it. I mean, people of all ages, not just my age, 25, 35, all the way down the line.

Very few people can afford to be poor.

While growing up, I saw how finances can play havoc in anybody's life. While we were comfortable, money didn't come easy.

Growing up low income and poor, I didn't have the best relationship with money.

For a good part of my childhood, we were super poor and lived in government housing. I don't characterize the American dream as being successful and having a lot of material wealth to show for it. I did fine without it for a really long time.

I have way more experience being poor than I do having money.

Yes, there is a burden of financial insecurity. I don't think you find it in mood. Income is correlated with life satisfaction, so maybe you do find it in life satisfaction. You don't find it in mood, and I think it is very important.

What is a normal childhood? We weren't rich, we were pretty middle-class. My dad survived from job to job; with him taking care of so many relatives, he couldn't save any money.

Poverty of course is no disgrace, but it is damned annoying.

There's no future in being poor.

I've experienced poverty and plenty, and there's a lesson to be learned when you're brought up in poverty.

I've known the panic of financial struggle. I didn't grow up with money at all, and my family has certainly known the panic of, 'Oh, gosh, where's the next bit of money coming from?'

We had plenty of clothes and no money.

My parents were working class folks. My dad was a bartender for most of his life, my mom was a maid and a cashier and a stock clerk at WalMart. We were not people of financial means in terms of significant financial means. I always told them, 'I didn't always have what I wanted. I always had what I needed.' My parents always provided that.

What fun it would be to be poor, as long as one was excessively poor! Anything in excess is most exhilarating.

No complaint... is more common than that of a scarcity of money.

I think money is important for everyone, because the lack of it is so painful.

Poverty us no disgrace to a man, but it is confoundedly inconvenient.

Rich folks always talk hard times.

We all need money, but there are degrees of desperation.

I guess if you're lucky enough not to have to pay your rent, then you or I take much more seriously the kind of work that I do, what it takes for me to leave two teenagers of my own and six stepchildren and a husband and four grandchildren.

Poverty itself is not so bad as the poverty thought. It is the conviction that we are poor and must remain so that is fatal.