Did Bernie Sanders never "earn a steady paycheck" before 40? There is a meme going around the conservative news sites and aggregators that 2016 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders didn't "earn a steady paycheck" before the age of 40. See, for instance: * The Gateway Pundit * The American Spectator * Louder with Crowder The origin seems to be this Politico article: > But if his positions are well known, the person, it turns out, is less known. Before Sanders was a U.S. senator, before he was a congressman, before he was mayor of Burlington — before he won one shocking election, then 13 more — he was a radical and an agitator in the ferment of 1960s and '70s Vermont, a tireless campaigner and champion of laborers who didn’t collect his first steady paycheck until he was an elected official pushing 40 years old. What truth is there to this claim?

All biographies record that Sanders earned a living between graduating college and running for Mayor of Burlington at age 39. Wikipedia is typical, and gives references.

> After graduating from college, Sanders initially worked in New York City in a variety of jobs, including Head Start teacher, psychiatric aide and carpenter. In 1968 Sanders moved to Vermont because he had been "captivated by rural life." After his arrival there he worked as a carpenter, filmmaker and writer.

and

> Sanders worked as a writer and the director of the nonprofit American People's Historical Society

Nowhere does it say that he was not paid for these jobs.

**Claim is false.**