Barack Obama Quotes

I am running for president to help create a better future. A future where everyone who wants a job can find one. Where no senior fears for the security of their retirement. An America where every parent knows that their child will get an education that leads them to a good job and a bright horizon.

Latinos are concerned about the same pocketbook issues that matter to most middle class Americans - creating good-paying jobs in this country, making sure our children get a quality education, and ensuring that our families have access to affordable and quality healthcare.

Eradicate poverty. This is all that matters in my country. When I am out training I think about this a lot; when I am running it is going over in my mind. As a country we cannot move forward until we eradicate poverty.

The real solution is to improve the incomes of the poor and provide their children with decent education.

We need to make sure that people are progressively better off in work than they would be on welfare.

At their core, Americans all want the same basic things: a quality education for their children, a good job so they can provide for their families, healthcare and affordable prescription drugs, security during retirement, a strongly equipped military and national security.

Let's take care of the necessities first: give people jobs, and find a way to get us out of poverty.

Taxing poor families runs counter to decades of effort to help people lift themselves out of poverty through work.

We need to make sure middle-class people are able to pay the bills. We need to make sure that poor people don't starve. Those are values, too.

Social Security not only helps Americans enjoy a secure retirement, it has also kept millions of Americans out of poverty.

I don't know of a Democrat - whether they're a conservative, a centrist or a liberal Democrat - that doesn't think that it's important to have quality jobs that pay decent wages so that families can support themselves, so that they can have the dignity of being able to afford health care, put money aside for pension, buy a home.

You need education. You need subsistence protection. We need jobs and social security. These are preconditions under which it will perhaps be possible to deal with these complex circumstances.

You go to Scandinavia, and you will find that people have a much higher standard of living, in terms of education, health care and decent paying jobs.

In Britain, the centrally prescribed welfare to work system short-changes the young unemployed. Transport, housing and education are over centralised.

And I believe that if we can care about whether or not our neighbor has a good job or access to affordable health care for their children, and we move to implement the policies that can improve these situations, we will unleash vast amounts of human potential and recapture the American spirit.

In America today, we are nearer a final triumph over poverty than is any other land.

The more time I spent in developing countries, and the more time I spent talking to poor people, I realized what they want more than anything is a good job.

You must not embark on programs to curb economic growth without placing a priority on maintaining income, so that the poorest people won’t simply be further depressed in their condition but will have a share, and be able to live decently.

Reducing poverty is in our own interest.

The poorhouse is vanishing from among us.... We ... today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land.... We shall soon ... be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this nation.

The 'People's Budget' rewards hard work and invests in our country. It ensures that everyone has an opportunity to get a good education, find a good job, live in a safe and secure home, put food on the table, have affordable health care, save for retirement, and maybe have a little left over.

I want to give people a basic income, so that if you're working hard, doing the best you can, that you can not just survive, but you can have a decent life.

Working people of this country want economic security. The worst possible thing you can do for those families is bust the public finances, have some welfare system this country can't afford.

Even as we continue to carry the banner of civil rights and environmental justice, we've also got to focus on many, many people - for them, life starts with a good job.

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.