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Bernie Sanders is newest member of the ‘1 percent’ — but still complaining about the '1 percent\
In 2016, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) earned more than $1 million, putting him in the top 1 percent of all earners in his state. (Joshua Lott/Getty Images)

Bernie Sanders is newest member of the ‘1 percent’ — but still complaining about the '1 percent\

According to financial disclosure information provided by the U.S. Senate, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) earned more $1 million in income in 2016, including $795,000 for an advance on a book he wrote for St. Martin’s Press titled “Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In.”

In 2016, the Economic Policy Institute published a study about wealth in the United States and included the average income of the top 1 percent of earners in every state (based on 2013 data). If EPI’s report is even remotely close to accurate, Sanders was not only in the top 1 percent of earners in the state of Vermont in 2016, he earned hundreds of thousands of dollars more than the average earner in that group.

According to EPI, the average earner in the top 1 percent in Vermont earned $735,607, nearly $60,000 less than the money Sanders received for his book deal and more than $250,000 less than what Sanders is projected to have earned when all sources of income are taken into account.

According to Senate.gov, Sanders’ Senate salary in 2016 was $174,000, the same salary he’s earned in the Senate since 2009. Sanders first joined the Senate in 2007, which means he’s earned more than $1.7 million in taxpayer funds alone since first being elected.

Incredibly, just days after news broke about Sanders’ earnings, the self-described socialist senator took to Twitter to bash the dreaded “1 percent,” who Sanders has long criticized for not paying their “fair share” and for earning their fortunes on the backs of the poor and disenfranchised.

On Friday, Sanders congratulated the success of the United Kingdom’s socialist-leaning Labour Party in Thursday’s election, writing on Twitter, “All over the world, people are rising up against austerity and massive levels of income and wealth inequality.”

Sanders then specifically knocked the “1%” for its supposed corrupt ties to government.

“People in the U.K., the U.S. and elsewhere want governments that represent all the people, not just the 1%,” Sanders said.

Sanders, who paints himself as a champion of the “little guy” and advocate for ending income inequality represents a state in which the median income for a married couple was $78,200 in 2015, according to a report by the Burlington Free Press. That means Sanders earned greater than $900,000 more on his own compared to the average married family in Vermont. Is Sanders really a champion of the "common man," or is he a hypocrite? On that question, the data seem clear.

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