Quotes About Upward mobility

What you don't want to do - if you're concerned about poverty, if you're concerned about providing opportunity - you don't want to rip the bottom rung of the ladder of opportunity away from people.

My parents found good paying jobs, educated me and my brother in wonderful public schools, and entered the middle class.

My mother worked as a maid, cleaning the fraternity dorm of the local college.

It is actually getting much harder for someone from an ordinary background to break through the ranks. In the period from 1964 to 1997, every single Prime Minister - from Harold Wilson to John Major - was the product of a state school.

I got married at 19 and graduated from a commuter college in Texas that cost $50 a semester. The way I see it, I'm a janitor's daughter who became a public school teacher, a professor, and a United States Senator. America is truly a country of opportunity!

I think one of the most important things we can do for people is to expand opportunity - whether it's the opportunity to live a life free of discrimination or the opportunity to get a good job that provides a gateway to the middle class. I've dedicated my career to expanding opportunity, and it's proven incredibly rewarding.

public schools in the 1940s, then to City College in upper Manhattan, and then to New York University Law School. The fourth partner was George Katz. He was born in 1931. He grew up in a one-bedroom first-floor apartment in the Bronx. His parents were

surely something to that. But it wasn't just the children of rabbis who went to law school. It was the children of garment workers. And their critical advantage in climbing the professional ladder

The "American Dream" is grounded in the promise of the transcendence of social class boundaries, as in the opportunity to enable one's children to climb the social ladder through educational and financial achievement. The mythology of upward mobility encourages Americans (including many in the academy) to pathologize poverty and disregard the influence of privilege

Both my mother and I were determined that we weren't going to stay on welfare. We always worked toward doing better, toward having a better life. We never had any doubts that we would.

The meritocratic society has given way to a hereditary meritocracy.

I am the man who has risen from rags to riches.

I am a woman who came from the cotton fields of the South. From there I was promoted to the washtub. From there I was promoted to the cook kitchen. And from there I promoted myself into the business of manufacturing hair goods and preparations.

The American Dream is that any man or woman, despite of his or her background, can change their circumstances and rise as high as they are willing to work.

Most American Jews came from the lower middle classes, and therefore they brought with them not a lot of Jewish culture. The American Jewish story starts with Ellis Island, and the candy store in the Bronx.

Upward mobility was part of the Dutch character: if you worked hard and were smart, you rose in stature. Today that is a byword of a healthy society; in the seventeenth century it was weird.

Instead, power went to those who made things happen: businessmen and local magistrates. Over time, human nature being what it is, these men would create a kind of nobility, sometimes even buying titles from cash-poor foreigners, but this in itself underscores the point. Upward mobility was part of the Dutch character: if you worked hard and were smart, you rose in stature. Today that is a byword of a healthy society; in the seventeenth century it was weird.

My decision was sparked by affirmative action. There was a point in my life when affirmative action would have meant something to me - when my family was working-class, and we were struggling.

The life prospects of an American are more dependent on the income and education of his parents than in any of the other advanced industrial countries.

Culture has sometimes been used to blame poor people and minorities for their own disadvantage. For example, some people believe that cultural values and lifestyles, such as a weak work ethic, childbearing outside of marriage, criminal behavior, and drug use inhibit upward mobility among some groups.

My conclusion is that there is considerable evidence that both Asians and Hispanics have experienced upward mobility across generations, indicative of some measure of incorporation in the United States. Asians have achieved parity, or even an advantage, when compared to whites in terms of education, income, and other outcomes.

I have never fully understood the whole class business in America, though, because I came from the very bottom of it, and when that happens it never really leaves you. I mean I have never really gotten over it, my beginnings, the poverty, I guess is what I mean.

My parents were the first in our family to go to grammar school. My grandparents were in service.

As a kid, I remember wondering why we lived in an apartment, not in a brownstone, and why we drove an LTD, not a Cadillac. Even now, I'm like that. If I'm on the 5th floor, I will wonder why I'm not on the 6th floor. But that was my drive. I was obsessed with my family having a better life.