Quotes About Poverty

Means-tested benefits have one incredible feature in that they impose huge poverty traps.

Tax credits do not help people get better jobs; in fact, they can create poverty traps that actually disincentivise people from working more hours or finding a better paid job.

When work is not underpinned by social protection, people risk falling into poverty traps.

I've lived out of my car for months with my two babies. I've seen my belongings in trash bags along my backseat.

I'm poor white trash from the state of Washington.

I used to walk to the Washington Monument from North L Street Northwest. And I was so hungry at times, I would stop and look into the trash cans, and if there was a half a sandwich, I would take that sandwich and eat it. It was just a matter of survival. I didn't think much of it, but it was just the way things were.

I didn't have any money. I used to try to take out people's trash and sweep the floor to make ends meet.

I think connected to poverty is the trauma of poverty. It's not just a material thing; it's a psychological thing that we have no mental health system in this country.

If we take a hard look at what poverty is, its nature, it's not pretty - it's full of trauma.

You suffer from trauma from the things that you've been through because you come from a poverty-stricken background. There are a lot of us like that.

I come from a world where the word 'trauma' doesn't exist, because we are too poor. I didn't have an easy life compared to the average European. But compared to the average African, it wasn't all that bad.

If we take a hard look at what poverty is, its nature, it's not pretty - it's full of trauma. And we're able to accept trauma with certain groups, like with soldiers, for instance - we understand that they face trauma and that trauma can be connected to things like depression or acts of violence later on in life.

One problem with globalisation is that bad ideas seem to travel faster than good ones; first there was smearing tomato ketchup on everything; then drinking sugar-soaked cocktails ('Cosmo'-politanism) instead of our traditional whisky soda, and now this idea that we should abandon the poor to their fate in order to protect their dignity.

My mother was a schoolteacher and very keen that I go to a city school, so although it was fairly impoverished times, I traveled every day to the Auckland Grammar School.

I realize that I'm in the top one percent of the world. I've traveled a lot. I've seen immense poverty in the world, and I can't live with everything I've had and be comfortable with everything I have unless I do something for the rest of the world.

I traveled with my mother, Lela, and there was never enough money. I always had to roll down my silk stockings and carry a doll when we bought train tickets so I could go half-fare. If we had $3, we always figured how to tip for the trunks and still eat.

If it is the choice between a bullet train and a three-wheeler, I will choose the latter as it is the traveling mode of the poor people.

The traveller with empty pockets will sing in the thief 's face.

If we want to talk about Gross Natural Product, we have to talk about the King of Bhutan's index of Gross National Happiness, too. Certainly I have found, as many travellers before me, that people in the poorest places are often the readiest to shower me, from an affluent country, with hospitality and kindness.

Grant me the treasure of sublime poverty: permit the distinctive sign of our order to be that it does not possess anything of its own beneath the sun, for the glory of your name, and that it have no other patrimony than begging.

I believe Aids is the most important issue we face, because how we treat the poor is a reflection of who we are as a people.

When I want to explain why empowering girls and women is critical to fighting poverty, I often tell a person's story. It's easier to relate to a personal story than to global data telling us that the majority of the billion people who live on less than $2 per day are women and girls. We are often told to never treat a person like a statistic.

The majority of people in Angola were not provided with any kind of schooling and were completely illiterate, very badly paid, and treated almost as slaves.

I do not believe that the hungry man should be treated as subversive for expressing his suffering.