Top 1200 Living Wage Quotes & Sayings - Page 2

There's enormous progressive activism and, more often than not, success at the grassroots level - everything from living wage campaigns to efforts to finance our elections are having terrific success.

Most arguments for instituting or raising a minimum wage are based on fairness and redistribution. Even if workers are getting a competitive wage, many of us are deeply disturbed that some hard-working families still have very little.

At the current $5.15 an hour, the federal minimum wage has become a poverty wage. A full-time worker with one child lives below the official poverty line.

No family gets rich from earning the minimum wage. In fact, the current minimum wage does not even lift a family out of poverty.

At a time when families are incredibly squeezed, it's essential that we provide a living wage for people who work hard and that women realize equal pay for the work they're doing.

Congress has not raised the minimum wage since 1997. The minimum wage is now at its lowest level in 50 years adjusted for inflation.

Mike Pence, when he was in Congress, voted against raising the minimum wage above $5.15. And he has been a one-man bulwark against minimum wage increases in Indiana.

Raising the minimum wage would be a positive step in reducing poverty, the humiliation of living in poverty, and dependence on public assistance.

Investing in living-wage jobs and reducing the inequities between local school districts would give young people more, not less, incentive to postpone childbearing and more possibilities for independence.

I would use the power of procurement, I would say if you want to do business with the mayor of London, you must pay your staff a London Living Wage.

Capitalism has improved the standard of living of the wage earners to an unprecedented extent. The average American family enjoys today amenities of which, only a hundred years ago, not even the richest nabobs dreamed.

I will advocate moving the Illinois minimum wage back to the national minimum wage.

I do feel like food should cost more, because we aren't paying farmers a living wage. It has to cost more.

If cheap immigrant labor is made unavailable, employers can hire Americans at a higher wage, or replace low-wage immigrant workers with technology and automation, which will create a smaller number of skilled jobs for Americans.

It probably wouldn't be good for our economy for a bunch of these jobs to come back because, there's no way that people could be getting paid a living wage on some of these jobs - at least in order to be competitive in an international setting.

Reduced employment opportunities is one effect of minimum wage legislation. The minimum wage law has imposed incalculable harm on the disadvantaged members of our society. The only moral thing to do is to repeal it.

Low-wage individuals barely get anything. I think we have to reward work, and I do think that we need to bump up the earned income tax credit to help low-wage workers.

I do not support a federal minimum wage. I think every state has a different economy, a different cost of living. I don't believe that's the role of the federal government.

If the opponents of an increase in the minimum wage were correct, then every time you fly to Seattle, you've got to bring a bagged lunch because there shouldn't be any restaurants because they should have all have gone out of business as a result of raising the minimum wage.

I'm a warrior at heart; I'm an ex-Navy Seal. I'm too old to wage war anymore, and so now I wage it mentally. And so I find politics very stimulating; it's war without guns.

In Cambodia, education is really a luxury, and many kids are thrown into work as early as possible. This means they can help support their parents, as often the parents don't even earn a living wage.

NAFTA recognizes the reality of today's economy - globalization and technology. Our future is not in competing at the low-level wage job; it is in creating high-wage, new technology jobs based on our skills and our productivity.

To improve the standard of living for working folks, we have to raise the minimum wage and empower workers to fight for their interests in an economic and political system that's stacked against them.

Unfortunately, the real minimum wage is always zero, regardless of the laws, and that is the wage that many workers receive in the wake of the creation or escalation of a government-mandated minimum wage, because they lose their jobs or fail to find jobs when they enter the labor force. Making it illegal to pay less than a given amount does not make a worker’s productivity worth that amount—and, if it is not, that worker is unlikely to be employed.

To be effective in tackling poverty wages, a living wage has to be mandatory and basic trade union rights should be restored so workers can protect themselves from exploitative employers.

Home Depot has never hired one human being for minimum wage, not one. We have always paid a premium over minimum wage.

Capitalism, though it may not always give the scientific worker a living wage, will always protect him, as being one of the geese which produce golden eggs for its table.

I do not support raising the minimum wage, and the reason is as follows. When the minimum wage is raised, workers are priced out of the market. That is the economic reality that seems, at least so far, to be missing from this discussion.

This mad rush for wealth must cease and the labourer must be assured not only of a living wage but, also a daily task that is not mere drudgery.

I have not heard almost anybody suggest that raising the minimum wage to the level we have in Vermont has been an impediment to our economy which is doing reasonably well ... If somebody is going to work that person has got to receive at least a wage that they can go out and live with dignity on. That's an extremely important point.

If a market exists for low-paid work, then we should think about how we can make this type of work more attractive by providing government assistance. Of course, the wage-earner must be able to live off of his wages. We will not allow poverty wages or dumping wages. But the wage earner can receive a combined wage that includes both his actual wages and a government subsidy.

Practically, the desirable situation ought to be one in which any reasonably responsible person willing to accept available employment can find a job paying a living wage within 48 hours.

We have a lot of evidence on what happens when you raise the minimum wage. And the evidence is overwhelmingly positive: Hiking the minimum wage has little or no adverse effect on employment while significantly increasing workers' earnings.

The one thing you can ask, I think, is that actors get paid a living wage. I would like it if all the repertory theatres that currently exist could do that. It would make a huge difference.

The problem with one single minimum wage is that you don't allow for younger people, who are less skilled and maybe more easily pushed out of the job market, or that the minimum wage should vary for different regions.

Catholics want what other Americans want: access to health care and jobs that pay a living wage. They want to send their kids to good schools. They want something done about poverty.

Many unions have contracts with employers that are based on a multiple of the prevailing minimum wage. If the minimum wage goes up, union salaries go up by a similar percentage.

Yes, there is some evidence that migration can slightly depress wages at the bottom end of the labour market, but that's an argument for a genuine living wage, for ensuring all workers are employed on the same terms and conditions, and for extending unionisation.

From a genuine living wage to a mass housebuilding programme and strong workers' and trade unions rights preventing a race to the bottom, our answers to the grievances that help drive anti-immigrant sentiment must be front and centre.

The minimum wage law very cleverly is misnamed. The real minimum wage is zero. That is what many inexperienced and low skilled people receive as a result of legislation that makes it illegal to pay them what they are currently worth to an employer.

You need to know that a member of Congress who refuses to allow the minimum wage to come up for a vote made more money during last year's one-month government shutdown than a minimum wage worker makes in an entire year.

The wage of a people has meaning only when it arises from production. Every increase in production should benefit the whole people and raise the people's standards of living.

U.S. trade policy is not just about the relationship between our nation and other countries. It is part of a larger conversation about living wage, consumer protection, job security, and a better quality of life for all Americans.

When I started in the business, the minimum wage was $1.25. I've seen an enormous number of wage increases. Basically, it applies evenly to everyone in the business.

If you do not ensure that people are being paid a living wage, then you are going to have people who rely on government assistance. It is that simple.

My home policy: I wage war; my foreign policy: I wage war. All the time I wage war.

President Obama wants Congress to increase the minimum wage. Believe me, when it comes to doing the minimum for their wage, Congress knows what it's talking about.

Like how on earth can you make 180 grand as a senator with luxe health care and sit there and be like Nero, thumbs up or down, on paying someone a living wage? I don't understand that.

Certainly other things we can do, we gotta promote after-school employment, give kids an opportunity, raising the minimum wage was part of that, we can't expect that young people are going to feel they can make a living out there for such low wages.

I have said, on a number of occasions, that we could have a lower minimum wage or no minimum wage.

I used to work at McDonald's making minimum wage. You know what that means when someone pays you minimum wage? You know what your boos was trying to say? "Hey if I could pay you less, I would, but it's against the law."

If you look at the future of the Democratic Party, things like raising the minimum wage - Democrats need to get behind raising the minimum wage and be clear on where we stand on trade deals.

If one would have a friend, then must one also be willing to wage war for him: and in order to wage war, one must be capable of being an enemy.

People are so cheap. Everyone wants quality, no one wants to pay for it. Here's the suburban dream-- to hire great workers who are such meek morons that they don't have the guts to ask for a living wage.

Though we talk peace, we wage war. Sometimes we even wage war in the name of peace. Does that seem paradoxical? Well, war is not afraid of paradoxes.

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.

I'm very careful with the money I have, I pay myself the living wage, and I try to save the rest, because if life has taught me one thing it's that you never know what is around the corner.

I think the minimum wage outght to keep pace with inflation. I think the minimum wage is a good thing to have in our country and I think it ought to be updated.

My politics are food-related - food banks, the living wage, zero hour contracts - and my food is political.

Working-class Americans have waited too long, close to a decade in fact, for an increase in the minimum wage. This has been the second longest period without a pay raise since the Federal minimum wage law was first enacted in 1938.