128 Living Wage Quotes
Following is our list of living wage quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about minimum wage.
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Famous Living Wage Quotes
Wages ought not to be insufficient to support a frugal and well-behaved wage-earner. — Pope Leo XIII
A job should lift workers out of poverty, not keep them in it. — Bernie Sanders
An industry that cannot pay its workers a decent living wage has no right to exist. — Fiorello H. La Guardia
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.
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
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. — Jerry Brown
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
Salary is no object: I want only enough to keep body and soul apart. — Dorothy Parker
We always strive to be the best in the wage package. — James Sinegal
All I've ever wanted was an honest week's pay for an honest day's work. — Steve Martin
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
Decent work is at the heart of the search for dignity for the individual, stability for the family and peace in the community — Juan Somavia
We've always been in favor of improved wages for workers. When you have a strong middle class, they want to buy more stuff at Costco. — James Sinegal
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
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
Short Living Wage Quotes
- Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration — Abraham Lincoln
- Profits are better than wages. Wages make you a living; profits make you a fortune. — Jim Rohn
- The real minimum wage is zero. — Thomas Sowell
- Earning of livelihood by following some profession is better than living on charity. — Umar
- Join the union, girls, and together say Equal Pay for Equal Work. — Susan B. Anthony
- Most people work just hard enough not to get fired, and get paid just enough money not to quit. — George Carlin
- Blame is a lazy man's wages. — Danish proverb
- The best customer of American industry is the well paid worker. — Franklin D. Roosevelt
Living A Simple Life Quotes
To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children; to earn the approbation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Finding a way to live the simple life is one of life's supreme complications. — T. S. Eliot
I remained a socialist for several years, even after my rejection of Marxism; and if there could be such a thing as socialism combined with individual liberty, I would be a socialist still. For nothing could be better than living a modest, simple, and free life in an egalitarian society. — Karl Popper
To be a warrior is not a simple matter of wishing to be one. It is rather an endless struggle that will go on to the very last moment of our lives. Nobody is born a warrior, in exactly the same way that nobody is born an average man. We make ourselves into one or the other. — Carlos Castaneda
It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction. — Albert Einstein
I am a conservative Republican, but I believe in democracy and the separation of church and state. The conservative movement is founded on the simple tenet that people have the right to live life as they please as long as they don't hurt anyone else in the process. — Barry Goldwater
Magic exists. Who can doubt it, when there are rainbows and wildflowers, the music of the wind and the silence of the stars? Anyone who has loved has been touched by magic. It is such a simple and such an extraordinary part of the lives we live. — Nora Roberts
We would all like to be able to live an uncluttered life, a simple life, a good life. — Jerry Garcia
To be simple means to make a choice about what's important, and let go of all the rest. When we are able to do this, our vision expands, our heads clear, and we can better see the details of our lives in all their incredible wonder and beauty. — John Daido Loori
The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things. — Elise M. Boulding
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
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
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
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
So what are the effects of increasing minimum wages? Any Econ 101 student can tell you the answer: The higher wage reduces the quantity of labor demanded, and hence leads to unemployment. — Paul Krugman
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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 Living Wage
More Living Wage Quotes
The farmer and manufacturer can no more live without profit than the labourer without wages. — David Ricardo
So, a strong commitment from all wealth creators is needed to fight against socialism and statism, and understand that if this is not done, socialists will always keep trying. Because what's the point? As they try to live off others without working, they are tireless in seeking this because their life's motto is to live off others. So they never give up on this mechanism of appropriating wealth and income from others. So this battle has to be waged continuously; you can't rest because when you rest, socialism advances. — Javier Milei
Competitiveness is defined as the ability of companies to compete while maintaining or improving the average standard of living. If you are cutting wages to become more competitive, that's not really more competitive. It's raising the skill and the efficiency of those workers so that they can support and sustain that higher wage. — Michael Porter
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
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
Born in the same land, we ought to live as brothers, doing to each other all the good we can, and not listening to wicked men, who may endeavor to make us enemies. By living in peace, we can help and prosper one another; by waging war, we can kill and destroy many on both sides; but those who survive will not be the happier for that. — Thomas Jefferson
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
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
People are very proud of Newcastle, very proud to come from here. This is a working class City and they just want to enjoy themselves and live life to the full. They work all week, pick their wages up at the end of the week and they spend it over a weekend by having a good time and watching the football. That's our life. — Alan Shearer
I want to applaud those workers rallying to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour. I believe strongly that a great nation will not survive when so few have so much and so many have so little. Every worker in America should be given respect, dignity and the wages and benefits they need to take care of their family. — Bernie Sanders
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. — John B. S. Haldane
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
Good poetry and successful revolution change our lives. And you cannot compose a good poem or wage a revolution without changing consciousness unless you attack the language that you share with your enemies and invent a language that you share with your allies. — June Jordan
I think the right-wingers have to buddy up to the fact that either the minimum wage has to go up, and people get enough money to live, or you're always going to have people needing government assistance. You can't have it both ways. — Bill Maher
All the laws made for the betterment of workers' lives have their origin with the workers. Hours are shortened,wages go up, conditions are better----only if the workers protest — Mary Heaton Vorse
It is notorious that, whenever the demand for labor is much greater than the supply, or the wages of labor are much higher than the expenses of living, very many, even on the ordinary laboring class, are remarkable for indolence, and work no more than compelled by necessity. — Edmund Ruffin
No man can be a good citizen unless he has a wage more than sufficient to cover the bare cost of living, and hours of labor short enough so after his day's work is done he will have time and energy to bear his share in the management of the community, to help in carrying the general load. — Theodore Roosevelt
These teenagers [that drop out of school to take the higher wage jobs] take jobs that would go to unskilled adults, making it harder for those adults to make the transition from welfare to work. — Greg Mankiw
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. — Bernie Sanders
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. — Bernie Sanders
I think we need equal wages which are living wages. — Jill Stein
It's not enough just to be in a panic. We don't have the luxury to be depressed about Trump. We have to look at issues like health care and the price of pharmaceuticals, the $15 minimum wage and things that actually make a huge difference in a lot of people's lives. That's feminist. — Susan Sarandon
It is for the State to take care that the economic conditions are such that the normal man who is not defective in mind or body or will can be useful labor feed, house, and clothe himself and his family. The "right to work" and the "right to a living wage" are just as valid as the rights of person or property. — Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse
Factory workers are not working for capitalism, they are working for a living wage. — Bernard Crick
Positive rights are the right to shelter, the right to education, the right to health care, the right to a living wage. These things are - these are, I would call them, more properly, political rights rather than positive rights. And they are extremely tricky, because now we are dealing with things that are zero sum. — P. J. O'Rourke
An active investor is someone who actually lives off their investments as opposed to wages from a job. — Robert Kiyosaki
Now, wages in the automobile industry are made up of two components, what we call base rates and the cost of living factor which is fed in by the operation of the escalator. — Leonard Woodcock
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. — Sadiq Khan
Special interests don't want border controls because uncontrolled immigration lowers wages, but the job of a president is to fight for higher pay for all Americans, including recent legal immigrants living here today. — Donald Trump
I do feel like food should cost more, because we aren't paying farmers a living wage. It has to cost more. — Alice Waters
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. — Mahatma Gandhi
House Republican leadership have refused to allow a clean minimum wage vote. Close to 15 million Americans will be affected if we did this. Do Republicans really expect a family to live on less than $11,000 a year? — Bill Pascrell
New Orleans is a city whose basic industry is the service industry. That's why it makes its money. That's - it brings people to the city. People come to the city and experience the wonders of this extraordinary city and everything else. The question is that, how do we create jobs which are the jobs that have pay, that - living wages? — Danny Glover
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