Sharan Burrow Quotes

I want a society that provides decent jobs for those who can work and decent security for those can't.

We have to define and put into practice a better, more coherent and effective policy on income security.

The most important social welfare program in America is a job.

A multi-tier social protection system must be based on a modest basic income so as to enable the precariat to build lives involving a balance of different types of work, not just labour in jobs.

People who go to work every day and perform the services essential to keeping our economy functioning deserve to live above the poverty level.

People who work full-time in America should not have to live in poverty - simple as that. Too many jobs don't pay enough to get by, let alone get ahead. Too many people are finding the rungs on the ladder of opportunity further and further apart.

Raising the minimum wage means we have workers paying more in to support the Social Security system.

Give the working-man the right to work as long as he is healthy; assure him care when he is sick; assure him maintenance when he is old.

We believe that the federal government is responsible to give every man employment or a guaranteed income.

If you work, you should not be poor.

The great network of social insurance programs established by President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, President Harry Truman’s Fair Deal, President John F. Kennedy’s Great Society, and President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and defended by President Bill Clinton, sharply limits the amount of poverty a downturn [in the economy] can cause.

People working full time should not have to raise their children in poverty.

The nation’s welfare system is a monstrous consuming outrage…. There should be no government program which would make it more profitable for a person to go on welfare than it would be to work.

Nobody who works full time should have to live in poverty.

We've got to get everything we want—a works program, social security, wages and hours, everything—now or never.

Hillary Clinton understands that if someone in America this country works 40 hours a week, that person should not be living in poverty. She understands that we must raise the minimum wage to a living wage.

The American people I talk to don't spend every moment thinking, 'How can I tax my neighbor more than they're being taxed?' They say, 'How can I get a good job? How can my kids get good jobs? How can seniors have a confidence in their future when they know that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are bankrupt?'

The national framework of social insurance - social security, unemployment and disability benefits, work programs, and workers' compensation - protected citizens from the kinds of risks that private markets couldn't or wouldn't insure.

When working men and women have secure jobs with living wages and social protection, they can invest in the economy at levels which will increase demand and help overcome the twin challenges of ageing populations and economic stagnation.

We prefer paychecks to welfare checks for the American people and a robust middle class with rising wages.

It's never been clearer that unrestrained market forces do not produce the kind of societies we aspire to - economically stable and socially inclusive, where citizens have access to secure jobs with the dignity of a fair wage and a welfare safety net.

I think it's fair to set limits, so that people cannot receive more than the equivalent of the national average wage while living on benefits.

I do think that people deserve a basic economic floor so the bottom doesn't fall out under them.

We are going to do everything that we can to protect working families in this country.

At the same time, it's people that are employed - many folks - but they're still not earning enough to get into the middle class.