Struggling Families Quotes

There is despair, Mr President, in the faces of those you do not see; in the places that you do not visit.

In the U.K., working-class lives are depicted with the characters' humour, but in the U.S., people with difficulties are often depicted with pious or simply dreary lives.

In really bad times, the hungriest would gather at his door at nightfall, vying for the chance to earn a few coins to feed their families by selling their bodies. Had I been older when my father died, I might have been among them. Instead I learned to hunt.

Gentlemen, I speak to you for the miners' families... The little children are gathered around a bare table without anything to eat. They are not asking for a $100,000 yacht like yours, Mr.______..." (here, he would gesture with his cigar toward an operator), "...or for a Rolls-Royce limousine like yours, Mr. _____..." (staring at another operator). They are asking only for a slim crust of bread.

Poverty is an open-mouthed, relentless hell which yawns beneath civilized society.

The last thing the theatre owners wanted was for people who spent $200 to see 'Les Miserables' to come out again and see the real miserable children of America, right there on the sidewalk.

I've been around low-income people all of my life. I mean, growing up, low income, the community where I've chosen to live, low-income.

My mother was born into a solidly middle-class family, but, as all too many Americans understand, everything doesn't always go as planned - no matter how hard you work. She died on welfare. Without the support of the state, I shudder to think of where we would have ended up.

A shining city is perhaps all the President [Ronald Reagan] sees from the portico of the White House and the veranda of his ranch, where everyone seems to be doing well. But there's another part to the shining city. In this part of the shining city there are more poor than ever, more families in trouble, and more people who need help and can't find it.

Poverty is not a disgrace, but it's terribly inconvenient.

It's pretty rare to just talk to people who are having a tough time in the economy, to hear their individual stories.

By-and-large, these are families that are just waiting to get out of here. They are frustrated; I would be, too. I get frustrated at the cash register counter when the paper runs out.

My tax plan will cut taxes for 95 percent of workers, because we need to put money back into the pockets of struggling middle-class families and close the egregious tax loopholes that have exploded over the last eight years. My plan eliminates capital gains taxes entirely for the small businesses and start-ups that are the backbone of our economy, as opposed to John McCain's plan, which would tax these businesses. John McCain is running to serve out a third Bush term. But the truth is, when it comes to taxes, that's not being fair to George Bush.

There's a real sense of desperation when you grow up in poverty.

When I was a kid in Houston, we were so poor we couldn't afford the last 2 letters, so we called ourselves po'.

We need a strong farm bill that gives assistance to farmers during times of drought, creates markets for local goods, protects our environment, and helps struggling families bridge the gap between hard times and a full dinner table.

The minimum wage has not kept pace with rising costs. This legislation is overdue and will help families that are struggling in this harsh economy.

I started when I was 39 as a cabinet secretary, and so I feel like I have lived an experience in my life where I can relate to families that struggle, and are scraping by and scrounging.

My mother saved our home with a minimum wage job. But in the 1960s, a minimum wage job would support a family of three above the poverty line. Not today. Not even close. I understood right then that people can work hard, they can play by the rules, and they can still take a hard smack.

I'm not writing about the 1 percent of people who have this fairy-tale, amazing life. I'm writing about people like me, who maybe had a rough childhood.

I live in a working-class community that is struggling at the poverty line, where people who work full-time jobs still at my corner bodega use food stamps. Do you think they care what the stock market's doing today or what the GDP number is? No.

We are not strangers to poverty in New Mexico.

It is clear that the economy has not gotten better for everyone.

I did not throw out my education lightly, but what I was being taught was of no use in explaining what I saw around me. It was the Great Depression.

If we take a hard look at what poverty is, its nature, it's not pretty - it's full of trauma.