Decent Wages Quotes

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.

To really tackle poverty, politicians, activists, academics will all have to think outside their boxes, will have to start developing much more integrated approaches to these problems. And a large part of this will involve working out ways to push for living wages. Partly this will involve re-empowering the union movement, which has been massively weakened in recent decades. Partly it will involve a willingness to restructure tax codes to penalize companies that don't provide basic benefits and decent wages to employees.

Decent wages keep people out of homeless shelters. Decent wages allow families to afford books and, I don't know, school fees and things like that.

It is right and necessary that all men should have work to do which shall he worth doing, and be of itself pleasant to do … Nothing should be made by man's labor which is not worth making; or which must be made by labor degrading to the makers

It would be better to incentivise people into work with secure jobs and decent wages, than to try to starve them into submission.

There must be a major economic recovery package which puts Americans to work at decent wages.

I think we do not need to send more jobs to low wage countries. I think corporate America has to start investing in this country and create decent paying jobs here.

When in some communities selling drugs is so lucrative that that's a pretty big enticement that we have to break down. Part of that is by making opportunities and paying decent wages.

Every worker needs a decent and legal source of income.

It is eminently possible to have a market-based economy that requires no such brutality and demands no such ideological purity. A free market in consumer products can coexist with free public health care, with public schools, with a large segment of the economy -- like a national oil company -- held in state hands. It's equally possible to require corporations to pay decent wages, to respect the right of workers to form unions, and for governments to tax and redistribute wealth so that the sharp inequalities that mark the corporatist state are reduced. Markets need not be fundamentalist.

Many of my students assume that government protection is the only thing ensuring decent wages for most American workers. But basic economics shows that competition between employers for workers can be very effective at preventing businesses from misbehaving.

A centerpiece for any kind of progressive social and economic program needs to be full employment with decent wages and working conditions. The reasons are starting with money. Does someone in your family have a job and, if so, how much does it pay? For the overwhelming majority of the world's population, how one answers these two questions determines, more than anything else, what one's living standard will be. But beyond just money, your job is also crucial for establishing your ability to raise a family, and your chances to participate in the life of your community.