Minimum Wage Quotes - Page 9

• I was making almost minimum wage on 'The Young and the Restless.' But it was my first job, so I accepted my first quote. I had a great time on it, and it obviously led me to better things.

  Eva Longoria

  Jobs, Bigger And Better Things, Firsts

  Black Star News interview, www.blackstarnews.com. April 19, 2006.

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• Every economist knows that minimum wages either do nothing or cause inflation and unemployment. That's not a statement, it's a definition.

  Milton Friedman

  Unemployment, Wages, Investing

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• On the basis of capitalism, victories like raising the minimum wage are only temporary.

  Kshama Sawant

  Victory, Bases, Capitalism

  Source: www.socialistalternative.org

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• Bernie Sanders did not wake up last night with this great idea that we should guarantee health care to all people as a right. Actually, it exists in every other major country on earth. You don't know that, because the media has forgotten to tell you that. But it does exist. In Denmark, because of union negotiations, the minimum wage is about $20 an hour. In Germany, you go to college tuition-free. In Finland, they actually pay you to go to college. Now, you don't know that in America because CBS forgot to tell you. But that is the reality.

  Bernie Sanders

  Country, Night, Reality

  Source: billmoyers.com

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• Men aren't allowed to have self-esteem, because we're already supposed to have all the power.... But most men earn less than they want, barely the minimum wage. They're drones. They do stuff they don't want to do to support their families, and they're not sure why they do it. They don't know what they're doing half the time, and any time we stick up for ourselves, we're pigs because we don't know how to articulate our frustrations and joys.

  Tim Allen

  Self Esteem, Frustration, Men

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• There are people who would like to get rid of minimum wage. But we have to have it, because if we didn't some people would not get paid money. They would work all week for two loaves of bread and some Spam.

  Chris Rock

  Funny, Humor, Two

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• What we need to do is raise the minimum wage. We also need to hold onto equal pay. Women work for 76 cents on the dollar for the same work that men do. That's not right in America.

  John F. Kerry

  Men, Equal Pay, America

  "Bush, Kerry debate domestic policies". The debate at Arizona State University, www.cnn.com. October 14, 2004.

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• I think it's time we had a President who will provide the only real economic security: good jobs. A President who will provide middle class payroll tax relief to get money in the pockets of workers who will spend it, not more tax giveaways for those at the top to stimulate the economy in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. A President who will index the minimum wage to inflation and raise it from a 30 year low, not increase the tax burden on the middle class and those struggling to join it.

  John F. Kerry

  Jobs, Real, Struggle

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• Teddy Kennedy's big new idea is to wheel out his 18th proposal to raise the minimum wage. He's been doing this since wages were paid in Spanish doubloons (which coincidentally are now mostly found underwater). Kennedy refuses to countenance any risky schemes like trying to grow the economy so people making minimum wage get raises because they've been promoted. Kennedy's going down and he's taking the party with him! (Recognize the pattern?)

  Ann Coulter

  Party, Ideas, People

  "Come back, liberals!". www.anncoulter.com. March 9, 2005.

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• The Republicans believe in the minimum wage -- the more the minimum, the better.

  Harry S. Truman

  Believe, Political, Republican

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• Clockers" asks--almost in passing, and there's a lot more to it than this--a pretty interesting question: if you choose to work for the minimum wage when everyone around you is pocketing thousands from drug deals, then what does that do to you, to your head and to your heart? (Hornby's thoughts after reading "Clockers" by Richard Price)

  Nick Hornby

  Reading, Heart, Interesting

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• Raising the minimum wage and lowering the barriers to union organization would carry a trade-off - higher unemployment. A better idea is to have the government subsidize low-wage employment. The earned-income tax credit for low-income workers - which has been the object of proposed cuts by both President Clinton and congressional Republicans - has been a positive step in this direction.

  Paul Krugman

  Philosophy, Cutting, Government

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• I was more than anything a radical. I was more sympathetic to Malcolm X than Martin Luther King because Malcolm X was more of a radical who was willing to confront discrimination in ways that I thought it should be confronted, including perhaps the use of violence. But I really just wanted to be left alone. I thought some laws, like minimum-wage laws, helped poor people and poor black people and protected workers from exploitation. I thought they were a good thing until I was pressed by professors to look at the evidence.

  Walter E. Williams

  Kings, Law, People

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• I remember the $0.05 hamburger and a $0.40-per-hour minimum wage, so I've seen a tremendous amount of inflation in my lifetime. Did it ruin the investment climate? I think not.

  Charlie Munger

  Thinking, Climate, Hamburgers

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• I live in the same house I purchased in 1971 for $22,500. I think we need to increase the minimum wage and so all my neighbors can get an increase in their wages.

  Dennis Kucinich

  Thinking, House, Needs

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• I worked at McDonald's. I cooked. It was one of the toughest jobs I've ever had. These people earn every single penny they get. In fact, they earn way more than they get.

  Keith Ellison

  Jobs, Mcdonalds, People

  "Pols back #FastFoodStrikes" by Jose Delreal, www.politico.com. December 05, 2013.

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• I think the minimum wage will be the centerpiece of the State of Union. I think it should be the centerpiece of the State of the Union. And it should be very focused on that because, as you said, Republicans in the rest of the country are for it.

  Robert Gibbs

  Country, Thinking, Political

  "Gibbs advice: Slim down '14 agenda" by Tal Kopan, www.politico.com. December 11, 2013.

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• Why, when the economist gives advice to his society, is he so often cooly ignored? He never ceases to preach free trade, and protectionism is growing in the United States. He deplores the perverse effects of minimum wage laws, and the legal minimum is regularly raised each 3 or 5 years. He brands usury laws as a medieval superstition, but no state hurries to repeal its law.

  George Stigler

  Philosophy, Years, Law

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• On issue after issue, the polls - and these are not snapshot polls; these are polls over a consistent period of time - show that most Americans share what one could call core liberal or progressive values: investment in health care and education over tax cuts; fair trade over free trade; corporate accountability over deregulation; environmental protection over laissez-faire policies; defending Social Security and Medicare over privatizing them; raising the minimum wage over eliminating it. The country prefers progressive alternatives to the failed policies of the conservative right.

  Katrina vanden Heuvel

  Country, Health, Cutting

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• Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Encouragement, Jobs, School

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.17, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Technological society leads to increasing numbers of people who cannot adapt to the inhuman rhythm of modern life with its emphasis on specialization. A class of people is growing up who are unexploitable because they are not worth employing even for the minimum wage. Technological progress makes whole categories of people useless without making it possible to support them with the wealth produced by the progress.

  Jacques Ellul

  Growing Up, Class, Numbers

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• But I also want to give them a pathway so that they can earn citizenship, earn a legal status, start learning English, pay a significant fine, go to the back of the line, but they can then stay here and they can have the ability to enforce a minimum wage that they're paid, make sure the worker safety laws are available, make sure that they can join a union.

  Barack Obama

  Law, Safety, Giving

  "Transcript: NPR Democratic Candidates' Debate". www.npr.org. December 4, 2007.

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• 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.

  Thomas Sowell

  Jobs, Zero, Real

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• On balance, I am a supporter of the minimum wage going up. We've got to be very careful what we wish for because some employers - and there could be a lot of them - will be scared away from hiring new people or creating incremental hours for part-time people as a result of that wage going up.

  Howard Schultz

  Creating, People, Balance

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• Obama's gonna play Santa Claus with the minimum wage. He's got no successes to brag about. He cannot talk about a robust job market. In fact, the very fact he's talking about the minimum wage is evidence there is no robust job market.

  Rush Limbaugh

  Jobs, Talking, Play

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