Sanders: ‘End starvation wages’ by raising the minimum wage

“In my opinion at the very least we should raise the minimum wage to $10 an hour,” Sanders said on the Senate floor. “If you’re lucky enough to be working 40 hours a week at $7.25 you’re making only $15,000 a year and that’s before Social Security and Medicare taxes are taken out.”

{mosads}Sanders praised fast food workers around the country, who have been protesting and demanding higher wages in recent weeks, for “educating the nation” on the low wages.

“It’s not easy to walk out of a job when you don’t have any more,” Sanders said. “But these young people have the courage to stand up and say we’re human beings, we live in the greatest country on earth and we should be able to earn a living wage.”

Sanders pointed out that the problem isn’t just for fast food workers, but many other large corporations pay their workers minimum wage as well.

“The reality is that many of the new jobs being created in America today are low wage jobs,” Sanders said.

Sanders said if corporations such as McDonald and Wal-Mart are able to give their CEOs multi-million dollar salaries and bonuses, the companies should be able to pay their employees a “living wage so that taxpayers don’t have to subsidize them” through federal benefits for the poor.