Sen. Clinton apologizes for work ethic remarks

updated 9:12 a.m. ET May 15, 2006

NEW YORK - After telling an audience that young people today “think work is a four-letter word,” Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said she apologized to her daughter.

“I said, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to convey the impression that you don’t work hard,”’ Clinton said Sunday in a commencement address at Long Island University. “I just want to set the bar high, because we are in a competition for the future.”

Clinton spoke to more than 2,000 graduates days after she criticized young people at a gathering of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington. In those remarks, she said young people have a sense of entitlement after growing up in a “culture that has a premium on instant gratification.”

The senator said that her daughter, Chelsea, phoned to complain after learning about the comments. The 26-year-old was hired in 2003 by McKinsey & Co. as a consultant, reportedly for a six-figure salary. She received a master’s degree from Oxford University after graduating from Stanford University in 2001.

“She called and she said, ‘Mom, I do work hard and my friends work hard,”’ Clinton said Sunday.

New York’s junior senator, who is up for re-election this year, also told the graduates she plans to introduce a bill that would help college students manage and repay their loans. The proposal would limit loan payments to a certain percentage of their incomes, she said.

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