Sen. Bernie Sanders told federal contract workers striking over wages on Wednesday that he is introducing legislation to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.

The Vermont independent and candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, speaking to hundreds of cheering workers gathered outside a Senate office building, said people working 40 hours a week “have a right not to be living in poverty.”

“What we are saying, loudly and clearly, is $7.25 an hour, the current federal minimum wage is a starvation wage,” he said. “It’s got to be raised to a living wage.”

Sanders’ bill would more than double the current federal minimum wage by 2020 and close a loophole that he said allows employers to pay tipped workers $2.13 an hour. Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus sponsored a House version of the bill and Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., co-sponsored Sanders’ bill.

The legislation would go further than the Raise the Wage Act, which would increase the federal minimum wage to $12 by 2020. That bill is backed by 205 Democrats in the House and Senate but hasn’t advanced beyond committee.

Sanders also called on President Obama to sign an executive order to increase the minimum wage for federal contract workers to $15 an hour and make it easier for them to join a union. Last year, Obama signed an executive order boosting the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour for new federal contracts, but Sanders has said that isn’t enough to support a family.

“It is a national disgrace that millions of full-time workers are living in poverty and millions more are forced to work two or three jobs just to pay their bills,” he said in a statement.

Sanders’ Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, supports Obama’s proposal to increase employees’ eligibility for overtime. She has also called for an increased minimum wage, but hasn’t specified an amount.

“To get all incomes rising again, we need to strike a better balance,” Clinton said July 13. “If you work hard, you ought to be paid fairly. So we have to raise the minimum wage and implement President Obama’s new rules on overtime.”

Currently, 62 million workers make less than $15 an hour, including more than half of African American workers and nearly 60% of Latino workers, according to Sanders’ office.

On Wednesday, New York’s Wage Board endorsed a proposal for a $15 state minimum hourly wage for fast-food workers. The proposal must be approved by Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration. Los Angeles, Seattle and San Francisco have already passed ordinances raising their minimum wages to $15 an hour.