94 Fair Wage Quotes

Following is our list of fair wage quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about wage.

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Famous Fair Wage Quotes

Wages ought not to be insufficient to support a frugal and well-behaved wage-earner. — Pope Leo XIII

Like all other contracts, wages should be left to the fair and free competition of themarket, and should never be controlled by the interference of the legislature. — David Ricardo

A job should lift workers out of poverty, not keep them in it. — Bernie Sanders

All I've ever wanted was an honest week's pay for an honest day's work. — Steve Martin

Fair' is, like, this incredibly overused term in negotiations: 'I just want what's fair.' 'What's the fair market price?' — Chris Voss

An industry that cannot pay its workers a decent living wage has no right to exist. — Fiorello H. La Guardia

Salaries and wages must reflect the reality of the enterprise's economic performance; deviations from the planned performance should be reflected in pay. — Samora Machel

There is nothing but a lack of social vision to prevent us from paying an adequate wage to every American citizen whether he be a hospital worker, laundry worker, maid or day laborer — Martin Luther King, Jr.

We always strive to be the best in the wage package. — James Sinegal

Fairness does not require the redistribution of wealth; it requires the creation of wealth, geared to an economy that can provide employment for everyone able and willing to work. — Felix Rohatyn

I think men and women should make the same for the same work, by and large. — Jerome Powell

What exactly is your 'fair share' of what 'someone else' has worked for? — Thomas Sowell

I may sometimes be willing to teach for nothing, but if paid at all, I shall never do a man's work for less than a man's pay. — Clara Barton

Absolute justice demands that mens incomes and rewards should ... vary, and that some have more than others-so long as human justice is upheld by the provision of equal opportunity for all. — Sayyid Qutb

Enable every woman who can work to take her place on the labour front, under the principle of equal pay for equal work. — Mao Zedong

Minimum Wage Quotes

Look for the enemies of Medicare, of higher minimum wages, of Social Security, of federal aid to education and there you will find the enemy of the Negro, the coalition of Dixiecrats and reactionary Republicans that seek to dominate the Congress. — A. Philip Randolph

I heard Russell Simmons say that, 'people have million dollar dreams with a minimum wage work ethic.' Basically, everybody wanna be rich but don't nobody wanna work for it. — Yo Gotti

No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country... By living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level - I mean the wages of decent living. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

Fair wage quote You can't have a million dollar dream with a minimum wage work ethic.
You can't have a million dollar dream with a minimum wage work ethic.

The real minimum wage is zero. — Thomas Sowell

By tying minimum wage to money supply, the poor's income would rise and fall with the rise and fall in money supply. — Max Keiser

Minimum wage law is the 'People's Fed.' Tie minimum wage to money supply. If there is pushback against this idea, then shut down the Fed and its ability to distort the economy, penalizing labor, or make the Fed's distortions available to all businesses and all workers. — Max Keiser

Fair wage quote Live so that when your children think of fairness and integrity, they think of you.
Live so that when your children think of fairness and integrity, they think of you.

I'm against having a Fed. It's socialism in its worst form. But until the Fed is gotten rid of, the only economic variable the poor have to counteract the injustices of the Fed is the minimum wage law. — Max Keiser

A minimum-wage law is, in reality, a law that makes it illegal for an employer to hire a person with limited skills. — Milton Friedman

It was the labor movement that helped secure so much of what we take for granted today. The 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, family leave, health insurance, Social Security, Medicare, retirement plans. The cornerstones of the middle-class security all bear the union label. — Barack Obama

In my view, we need a massive federal jobs program which puts millions of our people back to work. We must end our disastrous trade policies. We need to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. And we have to fight for pay equity for women. — Bernie Sanders

Wage Quotes

I don't give a damn what queers do, and don't give a damn what Christians do. Just get the hell out of my way because I want to live my life and I don't want the government sucking 60% of my wages off my ass. — Alex Jones

Some jobs pay better, some jobs smell better, and some jobs have no business being treated like careers. But work is never the enemy, regardless of the wage. Because somewhere between the job and the paycheck, there’s still a thing called opportunity, and that’s what people need to pursue. — Mike Rowe

Let us wage a moral and political war against the billionaires and corporate leaders, on Wall Street and elsewhere, whose policies and greed are destroying the middle class of America. — Bernie Sanders

Fair wage quote Always remember: be kind, be fair, be honest, be true and all of these things will return to you.
Always remember: be kind, be fair, be honest, be true and all of these things will return to you.

Masonic labor is purely a labor of love. He who seeks to draw Masonic wages in gold and silver will be disappointed. The wages of a Mason are in the dealings with one another; sympathy begets sympathy, kindness begets kindness, helpfulness begets helpfulness, and these are the wages of a Mason. — Benjamin Franklin

The lowest stage of humanity is experienced when the individual must labour for a small pittance of wages from others. — Robert Owen

Men Wanted for Dangerous Expedition: Low Wages for Long Hours of Arduous Labour under Brutal Conditions; Months of Continual Darkness and Extreme Cold; Great Risk to Life and Limb from Disease, Accidents and Other Hazards; Small Chance of Fame in Case of Success. — Ernest Shackleton

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. — John F. Kerry

If you do not condemn colonialism, if you do not side with the colonial people, what kind of revolution are you waging? — Ho Chi Minh

War, once declared, must be waged offensively, aggressively. The enemy must not be fended off; but smitten down. You may then spare him every exaction, relinquish every gain, but „til then he must be struck incessantly and remorselessly. — Alfred Thayer Mahan

It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages. — Henry Ford

Living Wage Quotes

The farmer and manufacturer can no more live without profit than the labourer without wages. — David Ricardo

It was a Conservative government that in 2016 introduced the national living wage, giving Britain's lowest-paid workers the biggest pay rise in 20 years. — Rishi Sunak

They have ruined our lives and driven down our wages tenfold. Therefore, we should not be surprised that they are leaving us 45 percent poor and 10 percent extreme poverty. — Javier Milei

The Living-Wage Campaign at Harvard is like a Boston winter: you know it's going to strike, but wonder only when and how hard. — Vivek Ramaswamy

I love how Mother Theresa said she wouldn't attend an anti-war rally but if there was a peace rally to call her. So I realized it's not about waging a war against everybody's disease and diagnosis but rather about helping them live. — Bernie Siegel

By bourgeoisie is meant the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labor. By proletariat, the class of modern wage laborers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labor power in order to live. — Friedrich Engels

Profits are better than wages. Wages make you a living; profits make you a fortune. — Jim Rohn

Everyone can have health care. Everyone can earn a living wage. We can educate all our kids - well. But none of that happens unless there's a political revolution. And it's not going to happen unless we deal with corporate control of the media. — Bernie Sanders

The union miner cannot agree to the acceptance of a wage principle which will permit his annual earnings and his living standards to be determined by the hungriest unfortunates whom the non-union operators can employ. — John L. Lewis

Almost all people suffer some form of intense inner pain at some times in their lives. The suffering might be depression, anxiety, substance abuse, or suicidal thoughts and it results from the battles we wage against our thoughts as we futilely try to get rid of our historie. — Steven C. Hayes

Raising Minimum Wage Quotes

It has now been over 7 years since Congress last raised the minimum wage to its current level of $5.15 per hour. Since that last increase, Congress's failure to adjust the wage for inflation has reduced the purchasing power of the minimum wage to record low levels. — Jon Corzine

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

To everyone in this Congress who still refuses to raise the minimum wage, I say this: If you truly believe you could work full-time and support a family on less than $15,000 a year, go try it. If not, vote to give millions of the hardest-working people in America a raise. — Sayings

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. — Matt Gonzalez

Raising the minimum wage means raising the living wage - and that's good news for Ohio. — Sherrod Brown

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. — Bill Pascrell

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

The bottom line is that five million low-income Americans working full time for minimum wage, deserve a raise. — Jim Clyburn

We have to make the economy fairer. That starts with raising the national minimum wage and also guarantee, finally, equal pay for women's work. — Hillary Clinton

If you raise the minimum wage, you're going to make people more expensive than a machine. — Marco Rubio

Low Wage Quotes

I pay low wages. I can take advantage of that. We're going to be successful, but the basis is a very low-wage, low-benefit model of employment. — Sam Walton

The theoretically unrestricted right to develop power, to wage war against other states, is antisocial and is doubly dangerous, because the state as a mass entity represents a low moral and intellectual level. — Christian Lous Lange

People understand that the economy is rigged. They're working longer hours for low wages. All new income and wealth, almost all, is going to the people on top. — Bernie Sanders

Most poor people earn more than minimum wage when they are working; their problem is not low wages. The problem comes when they are not working. — Joseph Stiglitz

Dad said I would always be "high minded and low waged" from reading too much Ralph Waldo Emerson. Maybe he was right. — Jim Harrison

I will tell you is the antidote to [Donald] Trump is a very strong progressive agenda that says, yes, I know you`re angry. And you know what? You should be angry because you`re working longer hours for low wages. You have a right to be bitter and you have a right to be that. — Bernie Sanders

Every three weeks before an election the TV ads expressing great concern about our trade policy and the loss of jobs to China and other low-wage countries. And then it's forgotten about the day after the election. — Bernie Sanders

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. — Thomas Sowell

People are tired of working longer hours for lower wages, of seeing decent paying jobs go to China and other low-wage countries, of billionaires not paying any federal income taxes and of not being able to afford a college education for their kids - all while the very rich become much richer. — Bernie Sanders

An increase in the relative price of products from the low wage manufacturers in Asia and Latin America will also make those products less attractive to American consumers. — Martin Feldstein

People Writing About Fair Wage

Name Quotes Likes
Read quotes by Pope Leo XIII

Pope Leo XIII
quotes on love, death and god

59 579
Read quotes by David Ricardo

David Ricardo
quotes on comparative advantage

72 922
Read quotes by Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders
quotes on millionaires, equality and capitalism

655 11379
Read quotes by Steve Martin

Steve Martin

286 1090
Read quotes by Chris Voss

Chris Voss
quotes on leadership, relationships and success

137 1
Read quotes by Fiorello H. La Guardia

Fiorello H. La Guardia
quotes on life, love and education

18 251

More Fair Wage Quotes

I had watched for many years and seen how a few rich families held much of Argentina's wealth and power in their hands. So Peron and the government brought in an eight hour working day , sickness pay and fair wages to give poor workers a fair go . — Evita Peron

There was nothing natural about laissez-faire; free markets could never have come into being merely by allowing things to take their course. Just as cotton manufactures were created by the help of protective tariffs, export bounties, and indirect wage subsidies, laissez-faire was enforced by the state. — Karl Polanyi

Every single thing I`ve done, from the Affordable Care Act to pushing to raise the minimum wage, to making sure that young people are able to go to college and get good job training, to what we`re pushing now in terms of sick paid leave,everything I do has been focused on how do we make sure the middle class is getting a fair deal. — Barack Obama

When I visited coffee farms in Ethiopia, the farmers could not believe we spend a week's wages in their country on a cup of coffee in ours, because they see so little of the profits. Oxfam's fair trade campaign helps right this wrong. — Colin Firth

The difference between the very wealthy and the working poor has grown. We raise that minimum wage and we move forward with the vision of this president that we have, which is everyone pays their fair share. — Barbara Boxer

A fair day's wages for a fair day's work. — Thomas Carlyle

Taking the politics out of setting the minimum wage provides fairness for workers and predictability for businesses. This legislation will also protect the most vulnerable workers and level the playing field for employers who play by the rules. These are the right steps to take; they will make Ontario a better place to work and run a business. — Kevin Flynn

American workers won't be able to compete fairly for jobs until companies have to pay higher wages in countries like China and India. — Andy Stern

We have to get very militant with some of these employers to say there's no shortcuts, our people have a right to a fair day's wage for a fair day's pay, and we've got to get that done. And that's going to happen. — James P. Hoffa

There are vivid memories from my childhood - what we had to go through because of low wages and the conditions, basically because there was no union. I suppose, if I wanted to be fair, I could say that I'm trying to settle a personal score. I could dramatize it by saying that I want to bring social justice to farm workers. — Cesar Chavez

When people talk about people being left behind - middle wages have not gone up for years, and we should recognize that, and there I think we need growth and skills - but there are these other people who have been left behind. When I say out loud, "Fifty percent of inner-city schoolkids do not graduate from high school," that is a national catastrophe. We should be ringing the alarm bells. It's not fair. — Jamie Dimon

The American people want to make sure that the rules of the game are fair. And what that means is that if you look at surveys around Americans' attitudes on trade, the majority of the American people still support trade. But they're concerned about whether or not trade is fair, and whether we get the same access to other countries' markets that they have with us. Is there just a race to the bottom when it comes to wages, and so forth. — Barack Obama

Anyone who supported Bernie Sanders who thinks we should raise the minimum wage, who thinks that we should have universal health care coverage, who thinks that the wealthy have not paid their fair share, and I could go on and on, would certainly not find that Donald Trump's views are in line with theirs. — Hillary Clinton

I was advocating for world peace, but I was waging a violent war against my own body. I was speaking about poverty and starvation, but I was eating more than my fair share. I was a hypocrite. — Bryant H. McGill

Saying I want to pay women a fair wage is doing something and saying young black people deserve not to be called super predators but to be engaged from an economic standpoint that gives them an equal opportunity says doing something.I`m tired of talking. — Killer Mike

I hold it to be our duty to see that the wage-worker, the small producer, the ordinary consumer, shall get their fair share of business prosperity. But it either is or ought to be evident to everyone that business has to prosper before anybody can get any benefit from it. — Theodore Roosevelt

And above all, above all, honest work must be rewarded by a fair and just tax system. The tax system today does not reward hard work: it penalizes it. Inherited or invested wealth frequently multiplies itself while paying no taxes at all. But wages on the assembly line or in farming the land, these hard-earned dollars are taxed to the very last penny. — George McGovern

But the time will come when New England will be as thickly peopled as old England. Wages will be as low, and will fluctuate as much with you as with us. You will have your Manchesters and Birminghams; and, in those Manchesters and Birminghams, hundreds of thousands of artisans will assuredly be sometimes out of work. Then your institutions will be fairly brought to the test. — Thomas B. Macaulay

The social relations of capitalism have penetrated slowly into all spheres of life to make wage labour the general condition of existence only in fairly recent times. — David Harvey

A fair day's wage for a fair day's work": it is as just a demand as governed men ever made of governing. It is the everlasting right of man. — Thomas Carlyle

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. — Christina Romer

What men of science want is only a fair day's wages for more than a fair day's work. — Thomas Huxley

Paying people a fair wage is a sign of respect and acknowledgement of the value of people's contributions to the business. When people are treated fairly and with respect, they will provide unparalleled levels of support and commitment inside the business, and to clients and customers. Everyone is more successful when people are paid a living wage. — Amy B. Lyman

Through job creation, quality public services and better working conditions, people, communities and countries can lift themselves out of poverty, improve livelihoods, engage in local development and live together in peace. This happens only when work is decent - environmentally sound and productive - provides fair wages, and is underpinned by rights — Sharan Burrow

Our attitude is that if you hire good people and pay them a fair wage, then good things will happen for the company. — James Sinegal

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

If you do your fair day's work, you are certain to get your fair day's wage - in praise or pudding, whichever happens to suit your taste. — Alexander Smith

A guest worker program should help farmers who are willing to pay a fair wage for law-abiding, dependable workers - not punish them ... And for this reason I support replacing the H-2A program and implementing new policies that will bring our illegal agricultural workers out of the shadows, as a first step in the process of overhauling our nation's immigration system. — Bob Goodlatte

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