Minimum Wage Quotes - Page 5

• 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.

  Jay Leno

  Believe, Talking, President

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• A lot of Democrats have said that raising the minimum wage is both good economics and good politics. The nonpartisan CBO issued a report today saying that raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour would cost the economy about 500,000 jobs...Why should we trust Democrats on anything when they couldn't have foreseen that this would be the case?

  S. E. Cupp

  Money, Jobs, Work

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• I was at the forefront of the effort to pass $15 minimum wage in Seattle, and have been collaborating with the people who are trying to make that happen across the country.

  Nick Hanauer

  Country, People, Effort

  "'Shit's Gonna Hit the Fan': Talking to a Billionaire About Class War". Interview with Hamilton Nolan, gawker.com. June 16, 2015.

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• I know firsthand that many employers who comply with other labor standards still hire the undocumented. Many businesses pay the minimum wage and have barely tolerable working conditions because there are sufficient undocumented workers willing to accept those terms. If we care about low-income workers in this country, we need to create pressure to improve their economic condition by reducing the supply of unauthorized workers.

  Maria Echaveste

  Country, Working Conditions, Low Income

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• Stop saying athletes do it for the love of the game. They do it for the love of their 32-room mansion with the live shark tank in the living room. If pro sports paid minimum wage, Shaquille O'Neal would be a bouncer at Scores, and Anna Kournikova would be a mail-order bride from Minsk.

  Bill Maher

  Inspirational, Sports, Athlete

  Bill Maher (2006). “New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer”, p.153, Rodale

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• It would help the poor people who need jobs. Minimum wage is a mandate. We're against mandates so why should we have it? It would be very beneficial.

  Ron Paul

  Jobs, Crazy, People

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• I come from a minimum wage working world, as we all did for at least some part of our lives, and that is never out of my rearview. I've never forgotten how much your feet hurt after you've stood on them for like 12 hours. And how the drudgery of a job you hate craps on your entire life; how you treat other people, how you treat yourself, and it really was getting to me.

  Henry Rollins

  Hurt, Jobs, Hate

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• I think the minimum wage ought to keep pace with inflation.

  Mitt Romney

  Thinking, Pace, Inflation

  "Mitt Romney’s Pants Discovered on Fire" by Robert J. Elisberg, www.huffingtonpost.com. October 17, 1994.

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• Liberals state that many teenagers would rather sell crack for $100 an hour than to flip hamburgers for a minimum wage. Using the same liberal logic, you might think it would make more sense for the average middle-class worker to rob banks rather than work a forty-hour week? The reason why most people, rich and poor, do not commit crimes because they know it is wrong to do so.

  Rush Limbaugh

  Work, Teenager, Thinking

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• If people envisage me in the Senate they might think of me as someone who would emulate Paul Wellstone, fighting for the issues he fought for. He was a good friend of mine. We'll be trying to do a couple of things. One is fighting for national health care. Another is fighting to raise the minimum wage to a living wage, and changing our trade policies.

  Bernie Sanders

  Couple, Fighting, Good Friend

  Interview with Ruth Conniff, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. December 1, 2005.

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• The gains we made in the United States that have made our country great have, in large part, been made over the opposition of major corporations. On nearly every issue, from fair labor standards, to the minimum wage, to environmental standards, to standards for a safe workplace, corporations have fought against them every step of the way.

  Byron Dorgan

  Country, Issues, Political

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• Right now, with millions of Americans still out of work, and struggling to recover from the worst economic downturn since the great depression, with 40 million Americans dealing with student loans, with millions of people working full-time at minimum wage and still living in poverty, with the big banks getting bigger and the workers getting poorer, and seniors struggling to make ends meet, Republicans in Washington have decided the most important thing for them to focus on is how to deny women access to birth control.

  Elizabeth Warren

  Senior, Struggle, People

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• The liberal paradigm of regulation and license has led to a society where an 18-year-old girl has the right to public fornication in a pornographic movie - but only if she is paid the minimum wage.

  Irving Kristol

  Girl, Years, Regulation

  Wall Street Journal, September 11, 1975.

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• Those externalized costs have always included labor. It is only the decline over time of the minimum wage in real dollars that's made the fast food industry possible, along with feedlot agriculture, pharmaceuticals on the farm, pesticides and regulatory forbearance. All these things are part of the answer to the question: Why is that crap so cheap? Our food is dishonestly priced. One of the ways in which it's dishonestly priced is the fact that people are not paid a living wage to process it, to serve it, to grow it, to slaughter it.

  Michael Pollan

  Real, Agriculture, People

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• Raising the minimum wage a lot across the board would make a big difference. It's not the only thing, but it's an indispensable part of solving the problem.

  Nick Hanauer

  Differences, Boards, Problem

  "'Shit's Gonna Hit the Fan': Talking to a Billionaire About Class War". Interview with Hamilton Nolan, gawker.com. June 16, 2015.

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• A minimum-wage law, a law that prevents employers and employees from entering into mutually beneficial economic exchanges, is as far from a free market or free enterprise as one can get. That's why it causes so much damage and destruction, especially to black teenagers and others whose labor, for one reason or another, is valued by employers at less than the government-established minimum wage.

  Jacob G. Hornberger

  Teenager, Government, Law

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• The conversation should've been about middle class people. The conversation should've been about how to raise the minimum wage and strengthen Social Security. But then we started talking about this whole email stuff again. And now the outcome is that, you know, Donald Trump has somebody who he's looking at to put on his Cabinet who's a lobbyist to privatize Social Security.

  Keith Ellison

  Talking, Class, People

  Source: abcnews.go.com

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• I would say one thing people need to do - and his is how Roosevelt's New Deal began - let us go back to cities and states where we can, build emblematic progressive reforms, like the Fight for 15 minimum wage, paid sick leave, things that improve the conditions of people's lives and that drive them into a national message.

  Katrina vanden Heuvel

  Fighting, Cities, People

  Source: abcnews.go.com

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• In my first 100 days, I'll work with both parties to make the biggest investment in good-paying jobs in decades. We'll also raise the minimum wage - a big deal for the nearly two-thirds of minimum-wageworkers who are women. And we'll give women the tools they need to fight for equal pay. This isn't just a "women's issue"т - it's an issue every American should care about, no matter their gender.

  Hillary Clinton

  Jobs, Party, Fighting

  "Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Discuss Student Debt, Immigration, and More". Interview with Judith Ohikuare, www.cosmopolitan.com. October 11, 2016.

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• If Democrats are not showing up in those [rural] places even if you're not gonna win right away but if you're not in there at least making an argument that, "Hey, you know what? It's the Democrats who are trying to raise your minimum wage."

  Barack Obama

  Winning, Trying, Hey

  Source: abcnews.go.com

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• It is not the actual greatness of national wealth, but its continual increase, which occasions a rise in the wages of labour. It is not, accordingly, in the richest countries, but in the most thriving, or in those which are growing rich the fastest, that the wages of labour are highest. England is certainly, in the present times, a much richer country than any part of North America. The wages of labour, however, are much higher in North America than in any part of England.

  Adam Smith

  Country, Greatness, America

  Adam Smith, Laurence Dickey (1993). “Wealth of Nations (Abridged)”, p.35, Hackett Publishing

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• A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be somewhat more; otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation.

  Adam Smith

  Men, Race, Would Be

  Adam Smith (1827). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, p.28

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• 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.

  William J. Clinton

  Government, Years, Needs

  Clinton, William J. (1997). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton, 1995”, p.527, Best Books on

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• The typical minimum wage earner is a provider and a breadwinner - most likely a woman - responsible for paying bills, running a household and raising children.

  Thomas Perez

  Running, Children, Typical

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• The internal and external ethics of an organization must be the same; you cannot talk about minimum wages for poor people and not pay minimum wages to your own workers.

  Aruna Roy

  Organization, People, Wages

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