Labor Force Quotes

• Population is a strong driver of the economy as well as the quality of the labor force.

  Ali Babacan

  Strong, Quality, Population

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• My friends, it is solidarity of labor we want. We do not want to find fault with each other, but to solidify our forces and say to each other: We must be together; our masters are joined together and we must do the same thing.

  Mother Jones

  Together, Want, Faults

  Mother Jones (1988). “The speeches and writings of Mother Jones”

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• One of the best ways to fight poverty and to fight terrorism is to educate girls and bring women into the formal labor force.

  Sheryl WuDunn

  Girl, Fighting, Way

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• Labor force needs and economic conditions are disregarded in our policies. Many aspects of our current policies and procedures are patently wrong. For example, legal immigration has almost no link to U.S. employment needs or economic conditions.

  Ronald Reagan

  Policies And Procedures, Immigration, Example

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• Look at Germany where 20 percent of the labor force is in manufacturing compared to about 8 percent in the United States. Germany pays a lot more conscious attention at the level of the federal government to attracting and keeping manufacturers in Germany. So this is something that other countries do that the United States has not historically done.

  Edward Alden

  Country, Government, United States

  "Trump's 'Interventionist Approach' To Economic Policy Presents Consequences". "All Things Considered" with Ari Shapiro, www.npr.org. November 30, 2016.

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• Being a member of the labor force and a full-time parent means trying to manage against overwhelming odds in an unresponsive society.

  Sheila Kamerman

  Mean, Odds, Parent

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• The liberation of women from exclusive domesticity did not originate in feminist books, or a war, or a big inflation, although they contributed to its progress. The rising enrollment of women in the paid labor force is a straightforward consequence of the industrial revolution of two hundred years ago.

  Barbara Bergmann

  War, Book, Two

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• In a world where technology and capital are highly transferable, there is a real risk that comparative advantage comes to be defined as whose labor force will work for the lowest wage.

  Robert Kuttner

  Real, Technology, Risk

  Robert Kuttner (1987). “The Economic Illusion: False Choices Between Prosperity and Social Justice”, p.102, University of Pennsylvania Press

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• As a proportion of the labor force, fewer individuals manipulate things, more handle people and symbols.

  C. Wright Mills

  People, Individual, Proportion

  "White Collar: The American Middle Classes". Study by C. Wright Mills, 1951.

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• Skilled shortages in America exist because we are shielding our skilled labor force from world competition. [Visa quotas] have been substituted for the wage pricing mechanism. In the process we have created [a] privileged elite whose incomes are being supported at non-competitively high levels by immigration quotas on skilled professionals. Eliminating such restrictions would reduce at least some of the income inequality.

  Alan Greenspan

  America, Competition, Immigration

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• Unfortunately, the real minimum wage is always zero, regardless of the laws, and that is the wage that many workers receive in the wake of the creation or escalation of a government-mandated minimum wage, because they lose their jobs or fail to find jobs when they enter the labor force. Making it illegal to pay less than a given amount does not make a worker’s productivity worth that amount—and, if it is not, that worker is unlikely to be employed.

  Thomas Sowell

  Jobs, Zero, Real

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• The Fourteenth Amendment, after the civil war, in principle brought former slaves into the category of persons, theoretically. But if you actually look, almost all the cases brought up for personal rights under the Fourteenth Amendment were by corporations. Freed slaves couldn't do it. In fact they were pretty much driven back into something like slavery by a north - south compact, that allowed former slave states to criminalize black life, which made a criminal force that was basically used as a forced labor force, up until the 1930s.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Rights, Black

  Interview with Jegan Vincent de Paul, chomsky.info. August 15, 2012.

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• When we say "people worry" about inflation, it's mainly bondholders that worry. The labor force benefitted from the inflation of the '50s, '60s and '70s.

  Michael Hudson

  People, Worry, Inflation

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• The German birthrate is below replacement levels, meaning the population is shrinking, meaning fewer and fewer people of age to join the labor force.

  Rush Limbaugh

  People, Age, Population

  Source: www.rushlimbaugh.com

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• Parents' work has shifted markedly around the world - and that goes for every region. Men in particular have been moving away from farmed-based work, and into industrial and post-industrial work - so they've moved away from the home. Women, likewise, have moved into the paid labor force and away from the home.

  Jody Heymann

  Moving, Home, Men

  "Forgotten Families". Interview with Juliana Bunim, www.motherjones.com. April 21, 2006.

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• You take a look at the history of African Americans in the US. There's been about thirty years of relative freedom. There was a decade after the Civil War and before north/south compact essentially recriminalized black life. During the Second World War there was a need for free labor so there was a freeing up of the labor force. Blacks benefitted from it.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Years, African American

  "Noam Chomsky on America's Economic Suicide". Interview with Laura Flanders, www.alternet.org. May 4, 2012.

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• Obama has had two raging successes in his term: He has slashed unemployment by persuading millions to give up hope and leave the labor force; and He has cut illegal immigration by casting the United States into a permanent job shortage. Some achievements!

  Dick Morris

  Jobs, Giving Up, Cutting

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• I first came into the labor force in 1941 when the minimum wage was 40 cents an hour, and that was my first job. And each time that we've tried to boost the lower level of salary for the most underpaid workers, there have been predictions of catastrophe. But each time, in [m]y opinion, the change has helped our Nation and its economic strength.

  Jimmy Carter

  Jobs, Salary, Minimum Wage

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• So much were employers of wage-labor unenthusiastic about proletarianization that, in addition to fostering the gender age division of labor, they also encouraged, in their employment patters and through their influence in the political arena, recognition of defined ethnic groups, seeking to link them to specific allocated roles in the labor-force, with different levels of real remuneration for their work. Ethnicity created a cultural crust which consolidated the patterns of semi-proletarian household structures.

  Immanuel Wallerstein

  Real, Ethnicity, Division Of Labor

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• The reality is that the overwhelming majority of women are working and they're going to be part of the labor force for a long time. While they may choose to take time off, they're doing things that women in '60s weren't doing.

  Heather Boushey

  Reality, Long, Majority

  "Women's pages: Next time you read about 'what women want,' check the research -- it's likely to be flimsy" by Reyhan Harmanci, www.sfgate.com. January 4, 2006.

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• If you had pockets, you were associated with a labor force. It meant you had things to carry yourself. Otherwise, your lady's maid or your manservant would have done it for you.

  Tim Gunn

  Pockets, Done, Maids

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• Our economy today depends upon women in the labor force. One out of three workers is a woman. Today, there are almost 25 million women employed, and their number is rising faster than the number of men in the labor force.

  John F. Kennedy

  Men, Economy Today, Equal Pay

  Kennedy, John F. (1964). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1963”, p.465, Best Books on

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• Anyway everyboy (sorry) knows that what women have done that is really important is not to constitute a great, cheap labor force that you can zip in when you're at war and zip out again afterwards but to Be Mothers, to form the coming generation, to give birth to them, to nurse them, to mop floors for them, to love them, cook for them, clean for them, change their diapers, pick up after them, and mainly sacrifice themselves for them. This is the most important job in the world. That's why they don't pay you for it.

  Joanna Russ

  Mother, Jobs, Sorry

  "The Female Man". Book by Joanna Russ (Part 7, Chapter 1, p. 137), February 1975.

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• I am grateful to those Members of Congress who worked so diligently to guide the Equal Pay Act through. It is a first step. It affirms our determination that when women enter the labor force they will find equality in their pay envelopes.

  John F. Kennedy

  Determination, Grateful, Equal Pay

  Kennedy, John F. (1964). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1963”, p.465, Best Books on

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• The number of people, the labor force, has shrunk by nine million human beings since Obama took office.

  Rush Limbaugh

  Numbers, People, Office

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