At the current $5.15 an hour, the federal minimum wage has become a poverty wage. A full-time worker with one child lives below the official poverty line.

Before serving in the Senate he represented Vermont's at-large district in the United States House of Representatives and served as Mayor of Burlington the largest city in Vermont. Congressional history. Sanders caucuses with the Democratic Party and is counted as a Democrat for the purposes of committee assignments but because he does not belong to a formal political party he appears as an independent on the ballot.