WASHINGTON, May 20 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) issued the following statement today congratulating Los Angeles after the City Council in the nation’s second-largest city voted 14-1 to approve an increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour over five years:

“I congratulate the Los Angeles City Council for voting to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour. The momentum is growing all across our country as state after state and city after city raise their minimum wage to help millions of hard-working Americans earn the income they deserve.

“States and communities are not waiting for Congress to act because working people cannot survive on the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. If people work 40 hours a week, they deserve not to live in dire poverty. We need to raise the minimum wage to a living wage — $15 an hour over the next few years.”