Iain Duncan Smith Quotes

Our focus is on helping people develop the skills to find and keep a job. Instead of focusing on a war against poverty, we will focus on fighting for the poor among us by offering them hope and opportunity.

As a former recipient of these services I can honestly say that the overwhelming majority of TANF recipients are hard-working Americans who are down on their luck, and just want an opportunity to better their lives and those of their family through work and access to education.

In the past, the public assistance programs have been too much concerned with the mere dispatching of monthly checks. … it is high time that some concerted effort be made to get people off the rolls who can sustain themselves.

I see an America where poverty is defeated by opportunity, not enabled by a government check.

The first priority of any serious program against poverty is to strengthen the male role in poor families.

When I left, there were over 1 million fewer people on welfare in New York state than when I took office, replacing dependency with opportunity.

Think about it: Every educated person is not rich, but almost every education person has a job and a way out of poverty. So education is a fundamental solution to poverty.

Simply expanding Medicaid does not improve health care outcomes. In Louisiana, instead we're helping people getting better paying jobs so they can provide for their own health care.

We need to make sure our government programs encourage work, not dependence.

It's a powerful thing to know that you are empowering someone to lift themselves out of poverty.

Helping people boost themselves out of poverty is the best way to make a lasting positive difference in a person's life.

The worst thing we could do is impose time limits and then expect people to sink or swim once they move off welfare.

Reduction of dependency is the greatest unmet need in social policy today.

What we need is a safety net that lifts people out of poverty - that helps them earn a good paycheck so they can support themselves.

Making sure that mothers are educated means we can lift more people out of poverty and build a more inclusive and sustainable society.

The old welfare system was hurting people by discouraging work and marriage. Welfare reform, and now this legislation, will build on the understanding that work and strong families are the foundation upon which we build our future.

Education can lift individuals out of poverty and into rewarding careers.

I'd like to work on job and educational opportunities for all.

Our goals for this nation must be nothing less than to double the size of our economy and bring prosperity and jobs, ownership and equality of opportunity to all Americans, especially those living in our nation's pockets of poverty.

I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion about the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.

Poverty-fighting programs are not handouts - they are investments.

We should measure welfare's success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added.

I want to fight poverty and ignorance and give opportunity to those people who are locked out.

The best way poor people can come out of their poverty is to get on the global highway, not on some dirt side road.

Good economic theory must give the people the chance to use their talents to build their own lives. We must get away from the traditional route where the rich will do the business and the poor will depend on private or public charity.