Bernie Sanders Calls For Federal Minimum Wage To Be Raised To 'At Least 17 Bucks An Hour'

At a "Fight Oligarchy" event in Asheville, North Carolina on Sunday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) spoke about raising the federal minimum wage.

Transcript

00:00I am tired and you are tired, whether it is Burlington, Vermont, or Asheville, or any

00:06place else, seeing people sleeping out on the street.

00:12Instead of raising the military budget, and by the way, the Pentagon has not undergone

00:19a successful independent audit for years, massive waste and fraud in the Pentagon.

00:26Instead of giving them this year another $150 billion in increase, we are spending a trillion

00:33bucks on the Pentagon right now, more than the next ten nations combined.

00:38Maybe instead of putting more money into the Defense Department, how about building 5 million

00:44units of low income and affordable housing?

00:56What's the minimum wage now in North Carolina?

01:04How much?

01:07You know, it really would be funny if it weren't so pathetic.

01:14All over this country.

01:15And, you know, I go all over this country and I talk to people.

01:18I was talking to people yesterday in West Virginia, and I talk to people, I talk to a woman

01:30in Iowa who comes to mind, she's raising kids, making 11 bucks an hour.

01:35How do you raise a family on $11 an hour?

01:37You don't.

01:38Right?

01:39So the rich get richer, millions of people working for starvation, wages for the middle

01:44class wages are stagnant.

01:46It is time to raise the minimum wage to a living wage at least $17 an hour.

02:08We are, as I recall, one of two nations in the entire industrialized world that does

02:15not guarantee paid family and medical leave.

02:24So what happens today?

02:26Kid gets sick.

02:27Mom has to make the choice, do I stay home with my child and not go to work and maybe

02:31get fired?

02:32Or do I go to work and leave my kid who's sick unattended at home?

02:36That is not a choice any mom or dad in America should have to make.

02:42We should not be the last bloody country on earth to guarantee paid family and medical leave.

02:51There are millions of seniors who are struggling today.

02:55We don't talk about it very much.

02:57We have the highest rate of senior poverty of almost any major country on earth.

03:02And just think about it.

03:04These are the folks who not only raised us, they not only built our economy, they fought

03:12in our wars.

03:14They are our heroes and heroines.

03:17And if we have any dignity at all, we treat those people with the respect that they deserve

03:24so they can live out their retirement years with dignity.

03:31That's what a humane society is about.

03:34You don't turn your backs on the people who raised us and built this country.