Nick Hanauer Quotes

This [minimum wage] legislation, passed by the 81st Congress at its first session, is an important addition to the laws we live by. It is a measure dictated by social justice. It adds to our economic strength. It is founded on the belief that full human dignity requires at least a minimum level of economic sufficiency and security.

Political Freedom without economic equality is a pretense, a fraud, a lie; and the workers want no lying.

It is time this Congress listened to the American people and minimum-wage workers, and it is time that we act.

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.

Unless you’re at the very top, you need a more equitable economy.

The minimum wage should be a living wage.

The value of the minimum wage shouldn't be eroded, and it has been.

This is the middle-class equivalent of raising the minimum wage.

There can be no distress, there can be no hard times, when labor is well paid. The man who raises his hand against the progress of the workingman raises his hand against prosperity.

An industry that can not pay its workers a decent living wage has no right to exist.

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

living wage

The labor movement has lifted more people out of poverty than all the programs in the country.

We need to see the FLSA and the minimum wage as part of a larger struggle to cut poverty and to address the challenge of income inequality.

We can afford to pay workers fairly, and it is the right thing to do. We also need equal pay for equal work.

Everybody is entitled to solid living wages, which we don't hear from Hillary Clinton. She's quick to talk about parity, but parity at poverty, and that's not adequate.

I've been very outspoken that the minimum wage needs to rise.

We must organize. We must protest. We must cry out in a loud voice that America needs a raise. We must keep working until workers in this country don't have to struggle to make ends meet.

As more and more people demand fair pay, the Government and big corporations are going to have to take notice.

Every American has a right to food, housing, and health care - and we can afford to provide it if billionaires and big corporations pay their fair share.

I'm trying to stand up so that the middle class, the working class, can finally have a say. I put them as my No. 1 priority.

My goal is to eradicate poverty. I think we can't have equality until we eradicate poverty.

I want people to make a lot more than $9. $9 is not enough. The problem is that if you can't do that by mandating it in the minimum wage laws. Minimum wage laws never worked in terms of helping the middle class attain more prosperity.

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.

A just wage for the worker is the ultimate test of whether any economic system is functioning justly.