Bernie Sanders: “60% of Americans Live Paycheck to Paycheck. The $7.25 Federal Minimum Wage Is a Starvation Wage. We Must Raise It to $20/Hour and Pass the PRO Act So Workers Can Organize.”

Senator Bernie Sanders is pushing for an increase of minimum wages to give Americans a chance to escape poverty.

Senator Bernie Sanders took to X on November 12, 2026, with a demand he has repeated for years. The federal minimum wage, he wrote, is a starvation wage at $7.25 an hour. He wants it raised to $20 and paired with the PRO Act. That bill would make it easier for workers to organize unions and for Americans to have decent and comfortable living standards.

“60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. The $7.25 federal minimum wage is a starvation wage. We must raise it to $20/hour and pass the PRO Act so workers can organize. A job must lift people out of poverty, not keep them in it.”

It is worth noting that the federal floor has stayed at $7.25 since July 2009, seventeen years without a raise. A $20 minimum would nearly triple it. Thirty states already set higher floors, according to the Sanders Institute.

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Senator Bernie Sanders Suggests Increasing the Minimum Wage To Benefit Working Americans

The senator is also pressing his own party to move faster. Democrats won both chambers in the midterms and take power in January. He says the new majority cannot continue the same old, same-old establishment policies. That message ran through his push for real change for working families. After experiencing the same old policies, Sanders is encouraging his party to step up and deliver their promise to help Americans.

The senator mentioned that 60% of Americans spend each check before the next one lands, and he believes this is an unacceptable way of living. The senator argued that workers shouldn’t just survive with their hard-earned money but also thrive and have a comfortable life. From the senator’s point of view, jobs should pull people out of poverty, not hold them in the same loop.

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