203 Quotes by Tom Perez

To realize President Obama's vision of opportunity for all, it's all about making the right match. The way we do that is through job-driven training - connecting ready-to-work Americans with ready to be-filled jobs. It helps more people secure a foothold in the middle class and helps businesses to profit and grow.

Historians have often censored civil rights activists' commitment to economic issues and misrepresented the labor and civil rights movements as two separate, sometimes adversarial efforts. But civil rights and workers' rights are two sides of the same coin.

Federal government has been a gateway to the middle class for people of color for generations.

Full-time workers earning the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 only earn about $14,500 a year in wages - below the poverty line for a family of two. That's unacceptable.

The first Friday of every month is what we call Numbers Day - it's the day that the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the monthly jobs report. We have a ritual at the Labor Department - at 8 A.M., we gather around a table in my office, and the commissioner of labor statistics briefs me and the department's senior leadership on the numbers.

I am proud of our diversity, and when you attack the federal workforce, you are having significant impact on women - many of whom are single moms working to support their family - and you're having a significant impact on communities of color.

Raising the minimum wage to $10.10 will benefit about 28 million workers across the country. And it will help businesses, too - raising the wage will put more money in people's pockets, which they will pump back into the economy by spending it on goods and services in their communities.

If you're going to be a big tent party as we are, and you're going to help elect democrats who have generated support in their communities... the will of those voters is the will that we must respect.

We need to do more to support working families, like guarantee access to paid sick and parental leave and make sure every parent has access to quality, affordable child care.