Bernie Sanders Hopes to Work With Donald Trump on Key Issue

Senator Bernie Sanders said on Sunday morning that he hopes to work with President-elect Donald Trump to raise the federal minimum wage, which has not increased since 2009.

Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont who caucuses with the Democratic Party, told NBC News’ Kristen Welker on Meet the Press, “I surely hope so” when asked about working with Trump to raise it.

In an interview with Welker earlier this month, Trump acknowledged the federal minimum wage is low saying, “I will agree, it’s a very low number.” Trump said that raising the wage is “very complicated” because “places are so different,” adding that “Mississippi and Alabama and great places are very different than New York or California, I mean in terms of the cost-of-living and other things.”

Newsweek has reached out to Trump and Sanders’ press team for comment via email on Sunday.

The federal minimum wage is the base hourly pay in the United States. To increase it, Congress must pass a bill specifying the new amount, which the president must then sign into law. Many states have set their own minimum wages above the federal level. State minimum wages range from the federal minimum of $7.25 per hour to $17.50 per hour in Washington, D.C.

The last federal minimum increase was in 2009 when the wage jumped up from $6.55 per hour to $7.25 per hour.

Sanders, who advocates for working class policies, told Welker on Sunday that he “tried two years ago to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. We got zero, not one Republican supported it.”

Despite the failed effort, the senator said, “I hope that we can work in a bipartisan way to finally accomplish that goal” of increasing the minimum.

He also called the current wage an “absolutely disgrace,” adding, “We have millions of people in this country who are working for starvation wages that cannot afford housing, that cannot afford to adequately feed their kids.”

Sanders says he would advocate for the wage to be $17 per hour. It is unclear, however, what number Trump and other senatorswould support.

While Sanders and Trump are not typically politically aligned, the two have some commonality among economic policies, including supporting proposed credit card interest rate limit.

Trump had suggested during his campaigning in September that he would put a cap on credit card interest rates at 10 percent. In November, Sanders said on The New York Times’ The Daily podcast he would “absolutely” work with and support Trump’s proposal if it mirrors what the Republican campaigned on.

Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, previously...