Economic Disadvantage Quotes

The black family survived centuries of slavery and generations of Jim Crow, but it has disintegrated in the wake of the liberals' expansion of the welfare state.

The mass of ignorant Negroes still breed carelessly and disastrously, so that the increase among Negroes, even more than the increase among whites, is from that portion of the population least intelligent and fit, and least able to rear their children properly.

In the U.K., working-class lives are depicted with the characters' humour, but in the U.S., people with difficulties are often depicted with pious or simply dreary lives.

There was years when my father didn't even make a hundred grand - or barely made a hundred grand - and sure, we had a maid, but she only came twice a week. What do you think happened the other five days? You think those dishes washed themselves? You think those clothes got themselves in the hamper?

Sometimes the poor are praised for being thrifty. But to recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.

The surest way to remain poor is to be an honest man.

Most negroes are still serfs bound to the soil or house servants.

The sad truth is that mass migration, whatever the colour of the skins of those involved, upsets and worries indigenous people, especially the poorest.

To those who say derogatory things about colonialism, I would say colonialism is a wonderful thing. It spread civilization to Africa. Before it they had no written language, no wheel as we know it, no schools, no hospitals, not even normal clothing.

I grew up in a working class family. People thought I might go work at a mill. My mom wanted me to learn how to lay carpet because she was concerned about my future. Nobody had high hopes for me. But I was a hustler.

I don't think they [Congress] ought to balance their budget on the backs of the poor.

People who are denied access to power are also denied the opportunity to make or influence decisions to live a better life out of poverty and claim their rights.

The Negro is going to be relegated to the menial jobs and will not get his promotions because the competition is too tough.

Poor people don’t employ people; only rich people do.

Frankly that's what makes such a big difference between President Obama on one hand and Mitt Romney on the other. Gov. Romney has not walked in those shoes of the ordinary Americans and frankly I don't think he has the capacity to quite understand the struggle that the 98 percent of Americans go through every single day.

Those who tilled the soil no longer reaped the rewards which were their right. The small measure of their gains was decreed by men in distant cities.

My family wasn't involved in the college. They were more of just your 'white trash' kind of family. And so I have that kind of background, but I always kind of aspired to be something else, and I made a lot of different friends over the years that were passing through.

We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did.

Negro poverty is not white poverty. Many of its causes and many of its cures are the same. But there are differences—deep, corrosive, obstinate differences—radiating painful roots into the community and into the family, and the nature of the individual. These differences are not racial differences. They are solely and simply the consequence of ancient brutality, past injustice, and present prejudice.

Blacks are about seven times more likely to live in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty than whites.

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.

I come from a pretty working-class neighborhood in Chicago. Hard work was just expected of you. It wasn't some noble thing you did; it was a prerequisite. It's what a man did. You get up, you put on your boots, and you work hard. We've lost a lot of that, I'm afraid.

Poverty is not socialism. To be rich is glorious.

My parents were working class folks. My dad was a bartender for most of his life, my mom was a maid and a cashier and a stock clerk at WalMart. We were not people of financial means in terms of significant financial means. I always told them, 'I didn't always have what I wanted. I always had what I needed.' My parents always provided that.

North as well as South, the Negroes have emerged from slavery into a serfdom of poverty and restricted rights.