Thomas Perez

Professions :

United States Secretary of Labor

Born :

October 7, 1961

Our workforce and our entire economy are strongest when we embrace diversity to its fullest, and that means opening doors of opportunity to everyone and recognizing that the American Dream excludes no one.

dream opportunity mean

I believe we're making a mistake if we regard job creation and job safety as mutually exclusive or inherently in conflict; they can and they must go hand-in-hand.

mistake jobs believe

Community colleges provide higher education where people live, helping to build strong ladders of opportunity that allow people to secure a foothold in the middle class.

strong college opportunity

It stands to reason: Higher wages means higher loyalty and morale, which means higher productivity, which means a more profitable business.

wages loyalty mean

I'm optimistic about our future as a party. It's about winning. The Democratic Party, if I had to do one word: winning. We need to win elections, because one thing I've learned is that when Democrats win good things happen to a lot of folks, and when we don't do so hot, we see a lot of chaos and carnage.

optimistic party winning

I think when we show voters in every ZIP code across America that the Democratic Party is fighting for them - I mean, Dr. King said, what good is a seat at the table if you can't afford to buy a hamburger? I think that's a message that resonates everywhere, and we have to boldly put that forth, and we've got to organize around it everywhere so that people understand, in Wisconsin, or in the heart of Baltimore, what we stand for.

party heart mean

When you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu, my friend Lee Saunders has said, and he is correct.

One of the problems that Hillary Clinton had, and one of the problems that Democrats still have is people don't really know what we stand for.

clinton problem people

The typical minimum wage earner is a provider and a breadwinner - most likely a woman - responsible for paying bills, running a household and raising children.

typical running children

People believe mistakenly, that with death comes atonement, when in reality, life is for atonement and Death is for Judgment.

religious believe reality

Donald Trump is an embarrassment to our nation. I mean, every single day you see something else that is an embarrassment to our nation. We can't allow that to happen, because it really is an affront on our democracy and we really do need to move forward.

democracy mean moving

One of the things the Democratic Party is trying to do is take the word off-year out of our lexicon, because we've tended to be an accordion as a party. We expand in the presidentials; we shrink in between; and we scratch our head and wonder why we lose midterms.

party wonder trying

African-American women are the most loyal constituency of the Democratic Party, and we need to do more to make sure that we engage them, that we don't take them for granted. We need to be there. And again, I keep thinking about that woman I met in Detroit shortly after my election, who said, "You've got to stop showing up every fourth October and telling me that you care."

care party thinking

I firmly believe that the Democrats' message of inclusion and opportunity resonates everywhere. When we talk about health care as a right and not a privilege, and the impact of the repeal efforts, that resonates everywhere, because everybody in every ZIP code has benefited in one way, shape or form, and frankly, in terms of under-performance, I think we have all too frequently tended to take some of our core constituencies for granted.

opportunity believe thinking

Every day should be Labor Day. We have to fight for the basic proposition that apprenticeship is a wonderful ticket to the middle class. When we're fighting for things like paid leave, America is the only industrialized nation on the planet that doesn't have some form of paid leave - these are not bold ideas elsewhere in the world.

labor-day fighting world

I continue to believe that America is better positioned than any country on the planet to lead in the 21st century, but we do have to be bold. And actually, our platform in the Democratic Party is pretty darn bold, and folks from Senator Sanders' coalition and Secretary Clinton's coalition came together around that platform.

party believe country

I continue to believe, and Trump has cleverly put fear on the ballot and fear in the eyes of folks, and my parents taught me that if you blow out your neighbor's candle, it doesn't make your candle shine any brighter.

eye blow believe

Donald Trump and Eddie Gillespie and the Republicans in the Commonwealth of Virginia are the No. 1 impediment to Medicaid expansion. Voters understand that, and so, when they go to the polls, there's a lot of health care voters in Virginia. There's a lot of health care voters in New Jersey. And when you have a party whose belief is that health care is a privilege for a few, like the Republicans believe, that has consequences.

care party believe

Every Democrat, like every American, should support a woman's right to make her own choices about her body and her health. That is not negotiable and should not change city by city or state by state.

democrat support choices

Every Democrat, like every American, should support a woman's right to make her own choices about her body and her health... At a time when women's rights are under assault from the White House, the Republican Congress, and in states across the country, we must speak up for this principle as loudly as ever and with one voice.

choices house country