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Who really said it

I've never been hired by a poor person

Not Ronald Reagan — a gag traced to comedy writer Robert Orben Robert Orben 1927–2023 · American comedy writer and Gerald Ford’s White House speechwriting director
No documented Reagan utterance; the earliest known version is a 1977 gag by someone else. Rights unconfirmed

There is no documented instance of Ronald Reagan saying this. Quote Investigator ↗ traces the whole family of remarks to a joke by gag writer Robert Orben, whose line — “Don’t knock the rich. When was the last time you were hired by somebody poor?” — appeared in a 1977 New York Times profile. The familiar first-person wording is a later folk variant that no source pins on Reagan.

Last verified 14 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“I've never been hired by a poor person” not Ronald Reagan. There is no evidence Reagan ever said it. The earliest known version is a gag by comedy writer Robert Orben, quoted in a 1977 New York Times profile: "Don't knock the rich. When was the last time you were hired by somebody poor?" The line was later reshaped by Milton Berle (1989), a painter quoted in The Washington Post (1994) and Phil Gramm (1995). Traced by Quote Investigator, quoteinvestigator.com/2012/06/11/hired-by-poor/ — via Quotle.info

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Ronald Reagan. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Evoking the world of Robert Orben — American comedy writer, gag-file publisher, and director of Gerald Ford's White House speechwriting staff. Theme: "I've never been hired by a poor person". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "I've never been hired by a poor person". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

Where the line actually comes from

Earliest known form
“Don’t knock the rich. When was the last time you were hired by somebody poor?”
First documented in
The New York Times, 1977 — a profile of gag writer Robert Orben
Closest to the popular wording
“I’ve never been hired by a poor man” — New Jersey painting contractor Michael Dolan, quoted in The Washington Post, November 1994
Reagan connection
None documented. Quote Investigator: “There is no evidence that Reagan crafted the saying though he may have heard it.”

Don’t knock the rich. When was the last time you were hired by somebody poor? Earliest known version — different wording, different speaker

This is Orben’s 1977 wording, not Reagan’s — and note that it is a rhetorical question written as a speaker’s laugh line, not the flat first-person boast the internet quotes. The “I’ve never been hired by a poor person” form is a later folk compression with no single identifiable author.

Quote Investigator: the full citation trail, 1977–2012

How we verified this

  • 1977 — the earliest known citation. Quote Investigator ↗ locates the first evidence in a New York Times profile of Robert Orben, a comedy writer who supplied humorous material to businesspeople planning speeches. Among his suggested lines: “Don’t knock the rich. When was the last time you were hired by somebody poor?” QI’s conclusion is that “this family of comments was initiated by a joke constructed by the humorist Robert Orben.”
  • Independently corroborated. Etymologist Barry Popik ↗, working separately, also dates the earliest version to Orben in the New York Times — he pins it to 5 June 1977 — and traces the saying forward through a 1981 Spartanburg Herald printing and a 1991 congressional hearing (“I have never gotten a job from a poor person”). Popik’s entry does not mention Reagan at all.
  • Then it drifted. Per QI’s chronology ↗, Milton Berle printed “I never got a job from a poor person!” in his 1989 joke file; a New Jersey painter named Michael Dolan told The Washington Post in November 1994 “I’ve never been hired by a poor man”; and by 1995 the line was being credited to Senator Phil Gramm. Each retelling shaved the joke down toward the blunt slogan people quote today.
  • Reagan never enters the record as its author. QI notes the saying appeared near Reagan’s name in the Congressional Record in 2003, when Rep. Mike Pence credited it not to Reagan but to an unnamed Pittsburgh pipefitter. QI’s verdict is explicit: “There is no evidence that Reagan crafted the saying though he may have heard it.” ↗ Wikiquote’s Ronald Reagan page ↗ does not carry the line in any section — sourced, attributed, or misattributed.

The exact popular wording — “I’ve never been hired by a poor person” — is an evolved folk variant with no identifiable author or first publication, so no copyright status can honestly be asserted for it. Its earliest known ancestor, Orben’s line as printed in a 1977 New York Times profile, was published well after 1931 and would be in copyright to Orben’s estate and/or the newspaper; treat any reuse of that specific sentence accordingly.

Fact-check

Who it gets pinned on

This is a joke that lost its author early and has been re-credited to whichever conservative figure was most famous at the time. Reagan is only the latest and largest magnet.

Ronald Reagan No evidence

The most-shared version of this quote today. Quote Investigator ↗ states plainly: “There is no evidence that Reagan crafted the saying though he may have heard it.” The Reagan association appears to be downstream of Rep. Mike Pence, who in 2003 and 2005 told the story of a pipefitter who used the line while reacting to a Reagan policy — Reagan was the listener in the anecdote, not the speaker. Repetition collapsed the two.

Phil Gramm Popularizer, not author

The Texas senator used variants often enough that by 1995 newspapers including the Tampa Tribune were crediting the line to him, per QI’s chronology ↗. Barry Popik ↗ notes there is no documentary evidence that Gramm coined it — and the joke predates his use by nearly two decades.

Milton Berle Reprinted it

Berle published “I never got a job from a poor person!” in his 1989 Private Joke File, per QI ↗. Berle’s collections were compilations of circulating material; his printing marks the joke’s spread, not its birth.

Arnold Schwarzenegger Gossip-column credit

Columnist Cindy Adams attributed the line to Schwarzenegger in a comical context in 2001, according to QI ↗ — a quarter-century after the joke first appeared in print.

The line was never a statesman’s conviction. It was a laugh line written for hire — a professional gag writer’s suggestion for businesspeople who needed an opener — and every famous name attached to it since was a customer, not the author. See the full trail at Quote Investigator ↗.

Context

How a punchline became a political axiom

The tell is in the grammar. Orben’s 1977 version is a question — “When was the last time you were hired by somebody poor?” — built to land a beat after a setup line, in a speech to a room of executives. It was written to get a laugh, and it was written to order: Orben’s business, per the New York Times profile that preserves the line, was selling humorous material to businesspeople planning speeches.

Across the next twenty years the question hardened into a statement, and the statement hardened into an argument. By 1991 it was being used in congressional testimony; by 1994 a New Jersey painter was deploying it to the Washington Post against the capital gains tax; by 1995 it was a Phil Gramm signature. Somewhere in that migration it stopped being a joke and started being offered as evidence — and, needing an author weighty enough to carry the freight, it was assigned to Reagan.

It started as a question a comedian wrote for hire. It ended as an axiom credited to a president who never said it.

Where the Reagan story probably comes from

Quote Investigator records that the saying appeared in the Congressional Record in May 2003, when Rep. Mike Pence used it — but attributed it to an unnamed “Pittsburg pipefitter,” not to Reagan. QI further notes a 2005 New York Times item in which Pence again told the story, this time framing the pipefitter as speaking to Reagan.

That structure is the likely engine of the misattribution. An anecdote in which Reagan hears a memorable line, retold often enough, becomes an anecdote in which Reagan says it. Reagan’s name is the only one in the story most listeners recognize, so the line migrates to him — a well-documented failure mode for quotes near famous people, and the reason Reagan, Churchill, Twain and Einstein accumulate sayings they never uttered.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Work Power

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Origin: I've Never Been Hired by a Poor Personquoteinvestigator.com

The authoritative investigation and the anchor for this page. Traces the joke from Robert Orben's 1977 New York Times line through Berle, Dolan, Gramm and Pence, and states there is no evidence Reagan crafted it.
"I never got a job from a poor person"barrypopik.com

Etymologist Barry Popik's independent citation trail, dating the Orben original to 5 June 1977 and noting there is no documentary evidence Phil Gramm coined it. Does not mention Reagan.
Robert Orbenen.wikipedia.org

Biography of the likely originator (1927–2023): gag writer, magician, publisher of Orben's Current Comedy, and Gerald Ford's head speechwriter.
Robert Orben Papers, 1947–2005 — finding aidfordlibrarymuseum.gov

Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library's archival record confirming Orben's roles — Ford speechwriter 1974–75, Director of the White House Speechwriting Staff 1976–77 — and his editorship of Orben's Current Comedy, 1958–89.
Ronald Reagan — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Wikiquote's Reagan page, with Sourced, Attributed and Misattributed sections. Useful as negative evidence: the line appears in none of them.
Quote Investigator — articles tagged Robert Orbenquoteinvestigator.com

QI's index of sayings traced to or through Orben, showing how often his gag-file one-liners escaped into circulation and got re-credited to famous names.

The likely originator

The man who wrote the joke

Robert Orben

1927–2023 · American comedy writer, gag-file publisher, and director of Gerald Ford’s White House speechwriting staff

Robert Orben was a professional gag writer and magician who ran Orben’s Current Comedy, a topical joke newsletter he edited from 1958 to 1989 and mined for dozens of one-liner collections. He supplied material to comedians and, increasingly, to executives and public speakers who wanted a laugh line to open a speech — the exact market in which this quip first surfaced. He crossed into politics in 1973 as speechwriter to Vice President Gerald Ford, and in January 1976 became director of the White House speechwriting staff, serving to the end of Ford’s term.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Earliest documented citation

Earliest documented in a 1977 New York Times profile of comedy writer Robert Orben: “Don’t knock the rich. When was the last time you were hired by somebody poor?” Cited and dated per Garson O’Toole, “Quote Origin: I’ve Never Been Hired by a Poor Person,” Quote Investigator, June 11, 2012, https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/06/11/hired-by-poor/; and Barry Popik, “I never got a job from a poor person,” barrypopik.com.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘I've never been hired by a poor person’?” Last verified 14 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/ive-never-been-hired-by-a-poor-person

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