employment struggles Quotes

People are working hard, they're doing everything we ask of them, and they are still struggling. It's not enough to just have a job. We need to make sure that these are good-paying jobs that pay the rent and put food on the table. Jobs that have benefits like health care and that allow people to save for retirement.

People say, 'Well, why don't they get another job, why don't they pick themselves up by their bootstraps?' Well, the people that say that probably have the kind of jobs where they don't work that hard, so maybe they could have another job.

The average man gets his living by such depressing devices that boredom becomes a sort of natural state to him.

President Obama had beer with four unemployed construction workers. And Obama asked the guys what was it like to lose their jobs, and they were like, 'Oh, you'll see.'

I worked as a parking lot attendant for a while and a delivery boy and two or three other things, but none of them seemed just right.

We live in an age of generational turmoil. Baby-boom parents are accused of clinging on to jobs and houses which they should be freeing up for their children. Twentysomethings who can't afford to leave home and can't get jobs are attacked as aimless and immature.

Not to sound too pathetic, but there have been long stretches where I haven't been able to get a job.

I always sympathized with the people who did work for hire; I was one of them.

My mom had been a script supervisor in Hungary, but you can't just jump into that in Canada without knowing any English. She worked retail jobs and raised my sister and me while learning English.

When I graduated college I had a series of just humiliating jobs that I couldn't believe I was at.

Eventually I lost the idea that I could have a career. I thought I was too old.

It's been over a year since they've graduated, but neither of the Bush twins have found any work. Why don't they sign up (for military service in Iraq)? Do they hate America, or just freedom in general?

Did my father's generation hit the beaches of Normandy and Iwo Jima so their children would have to pee in a cup to hold a job in America?

The first time I was homeless was when I went to Atlanta. I was in a homeless shelter, then when I got a job I used to miss the curfew for the shelter. So I ended up sleeping outside in the streets.

I never could get a proper job.

Most poor people are not on welfare. . . I know they work. I'm a witness. They catch the early bus. They work every day. They raise other people's children. They work every day. They clean the streets. They work every day. They drive vans with cabs. They work every day. They change beds you slept in these hotels last night and can't get a union contract. They work every day . . .

Have you noticed how difficult it is just to get along in the world? If you're no good at all in your job, people treat you badly and eventually you will be unemployed. And if you're a little better than competent, everyone expects miracles from you, every single time. Like most of life, it's a no-win situation. And if you dare to mention it, no matter how creatively you phrase your complaints, you are shunned as a whiner.

I went to Wellesley College, and it was really hard for me to get a job after I graduated. I would go into places where I would not see any black people at all in Boston - like, zero. And then in publishing in New York City, it was pretty much the same. I knew that it wasn't about the value of my work.

So I became a newspaperman. I hated to do it but I couldnt find honest employment.

I'm just not very good at holding on to jobs.

Men, when they're out of work, tend to become abusive.

Cause I'm on set, make it work, break even on 9 to 5's. Cigarettes and lotto tickets, tryna keep that grind alive

In L.A., every day, I see people taking other people's jobs, and they don't care whether that person is married and has two kids. People have no morals here.

Everything's harder for women: harder to start, to stay employed, to run a life with a family.

Like all wage slaves, he had two crosses to bear: the people he worked for and the people he worked with