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I was just a regular kid in poverty, struggling.

I grew up in an era of pretty severe poverty. My parents weathered the Great Depression, and money was always a very big concern. I was weaned on a shortage mentality and placed in foster homes largely because there simply wasn't enough money to take care of the most basic of needs.

I've experienced poverty and plenty, and there's a lesson to be learned when you're brought up in poverty.

It wasn't poverty that drove me on.

I came from abject poverty. There was nowhere to go but up.

My entire childhood was steeped in poverty. For me, poverty, in a way, was the first inspiration of my life, a commitment to do something for the poor.

I was born in a very poor family. I used to sell tea in a railway coach as a child. My mother used to wash utensils and do lowly household work in the houses of others to earn a livelihood. I have seen poverty very closely. I have lived in poverty. As a child, my entire childhood was steeped in poverty.

I worked my way up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty.

My mom grew up in poverty in Oklahoma - like Dust Bowl, nine people in one room kind of place - and the way she got out of poverty was through education. My dad grew up without a dad, with very little and he also made his way out through education.

I myself am from a very poor background; I experienced firsthand poverty in this country, and that is not unrelated to my desire, from the moment I became president, to make a priority of poverty reduction in this country.