Politics

Bernie Says A Majority Of Americans Support A $15 Dollar Minimum Wage, But The Numbers Don’t Tell The Whole Story

Yuri Grippas/Reuters

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Julia Cohen Reporter
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Former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders said the majority of Americans support a $15 hourly minimum wage, but an April poll by CreditLoan showed $15 is not the absolute lowest many Americans would see as fair.

“Just a few years ago, many of the things we are fighting for were considered too radical, like […] Fight for $15 — now these ideas are supported by the majority of American people,” the Vermont senator said at the Communication Workers of America Legislative-Political Conference on Wednesday.

While, when asked, people generally are supportive of a $15 minimum wage, the numbers come in lower when asked what the wages themselves should be.

The average ideal minimum wage was $11.56 an hour, according to a CreditLoan survey from April. Democrats said the ideal wage is $12.71 an hour, while those making less than $10,000 a year advocated for a $12.03 minimum wage.

No subgroup supported a $15 hourly minimum wage.

“How can you talk about more than doubling the federal minimum wage of seven and a quarter per hour …” Sanders said of the $15 minimum wage. “Well today that idea is no longer radical.” (RELATED: Alex Jones Runs Into Bernie Sanders At The Airport, Calls Him The ‘King Of Communism’)

The survey asked 2,669 what the ideal minimum wage should be via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk.

Editor’s Note: The original published version of this article said that most Americans do not support a $15 minimum wage. That was incorrect. When asked about the minimum wages, most Americans support a minimum wage lower than $15 on average. However, when asked about a $15 minimum wage explicitly, a majority of Americans show their support in multiple polls. This article has been updated to reflect that point.

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