Rutger Bregman Quotes

Instead of helping a lucky few to escape disadvantage, a Labour government will aim to abolish poverty completely and create a more equal society, raising the living standards and well-being of all.

A universal basic income doesn't give people dignity or protect them from boredom and vice.

While it won't solve all the world's ills - and ideas such as a rent cap and more social housing are necessary in places where housing is scarce - a basic income would work like venture capital for the people.

In a good society, those in the middle and at the bottom ought to benefit significantly from economic growth. When the country prospers, everybody should prosper.

I want to give people a basic income, so that if you're working hard, doing the best you can, that you can not just survive, but you can have a decent life.

Working people of this country want economic security. The worst possible thing you can do for those families is bust the public finances, have some welfare system this country can't afford.

Universal basic income is not a solution in search of a problem - it is the obvious solution that has been in front of us for years. It only requires us to have the vision, empathy and courage to adopt it for the American people before it is too late.

When you talk about war on poverty it doesn't mean very much; but if you can show to some degree this sort of thing then you can show a great deal more of how people are living and a very great percentage of our people today.

Taxing poor families runs counter to decades of effort to help people lift themselves out of poverty through work.

We need to make sure middle-class people are able to pay the bills. We need to make sure that poor people don't starve. Those are values, too.

I don't know of a Democrat - whether they're a conservative, a centrist or a liberal Democrat - that doesn't think that it's important to have quality jobs that pay decent wages so that families can support themselves, so that they can have the dignity of being able to afford health care, put money aside for pension, buy a home.

We cannot afford to leave the poor behind.

We have to define and put into practice a better, more coherent and effective policy on income security.

But we can also take the radical view that the test of an economy has to do with the extent to which it is providing everybody with a decent means of living.

I worry about growing income inequality. But I worry even more that the discussion is too narrowly focused. I worry that our outrage at the top 1 percent is distracting us from the problem that we should really care about: how to create opportunities and ensure a reasonable standard of living for the bottom 20 percent.

President Obama believes that income inequality is one of the most pressing matters facing the nation. If we are going to be a country that provides ladders of opportunity and believes in a thriving middle class, then we have to raise the minimum wage.

In America today, we are nearer a final triumph over poverty than is any other land.

Government has never increased the standard of living of one single human being in civilization's history. For some reason that simple truth has evaded everybody.

You must not embark on programs to curb economic growth without placing a priority on maintaining income, so that the poorest people won’t simply be further depressed in their condition but will have a share, and be able to live decently.

Reducing poverty is in our own interest.

The best social programs we've had in this country are those that have united the middle class and the poor.

The poorhouse is vanishing from among us.... We ... today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land.... We shall soon ... be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this nation.

This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America.

We will not rest until this war [on poverty] is won.

Politicians should tell working Americans what they need to hear, not what they want to hear. And what they need to hear is that it is possible for all Americans to have good lives, even if the can’t all have good jobs.