The Waterbury Area Senior Center buzzed with anticipation last Thursday as a standing-room-only crowd gathered to speak with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Surveying the roughly 30 attendees, most of whom appeared to be younger than him, the 82-year-old senator said he was working hard to increase funding for vital senior programs and wanted to hear how the federal government might improve their lives.

"What's on your mind?" he asked.

Mary Alice Bisbee, an 87-year-old Montpelier resident, was one of the first to raise her hand.

"I've been around a long time," Bisbee said. "But now I can't afford assisted living ... and while I'm in subsidized housing and I love my apartment, I can't find anybody to help me. There's no helpers."

"Mary Alice, it's good to see you," Sanders replied. "In one sentence, you just summarized a lot of the issues out there."

Long a champion for the have-nots, Sanders could have once been described as an underdog himself, until two presidential bids helped transform him into one of the most influential members of Congress. Vermont's senior senator now holds a powerful perch as the chair of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, or HELP. When he's not dragging in CEOs of major corporations for contentious hearings, Sanders is spending much of his time advocating for people 65 and older, whose ranks are set to grow by some 10,000 nationally each day through 2030. By then, roughly one in four Vermonters will be 65 or older.

He has published reports on the financial pitfalls of retirement and the "rigged" system that has allowed major pharmaceutical companies to charge American patients far more than people in other countries. He also introduced legislation that would shore up and expand Social Security programs via a tax on corporations and high-income earners. And he has stressed the importance of the Older Americans Act, which provides funding to vital programs such as Meals on Wheels that help ensure the most vulnerable seniors can safely remain in their homes.

That law, passed in 1965, gets renewed every four years or so but has not kept up with inflation, according to Sanders, who wants to increase its annual funding from $2.4 billion to $4.6 billion.

"That's not a radical idea," Sanders told the crowd last week. "The price of food has gone way up. Funding has not."

Seven Days requested a sit-down with Sanders for our yearlong series on Vermont's aging population. This was his first interview with the paper in nine years.

When president Johnson signed the Older Americans Act in 1965, he said it "clearly affirms our nation's sense of responsibility toward the well-being of all of our older citizens." Nearly 60 years later, how well do you think we as a country are living up to that responsibility?

Pretty poorly, to be honest with you. The priorities that exist in Washington are backwards. It's not just that we have the highest rate of childhood poverty among any other industrialized country, it's the same with seniors. If you look at senior poverty in the United States, compared to many European countries, we have far more poverty than they do. Unbelievably, about 25 percent of seniors are trying to make it on $15,000 a year or less. And about 50 percent are trying to make it on $30,000 a year. It's really hard to imagine anybody being able to do that. I think we have fallen far behind in what we owe, as a democratic and humane society, to the people who raised us.

You recently noted that half of Americans don't really have any retirement savings. How did we get to that point?

You look at the economy today and the economy over the last 50 years — you tell me, how has the working class in this country done over the last 50 years? Done well? The truth, unbelievably — and talked about very rarely — is that real inflation-accounted-for wages for the average American worker today is lower than it was 50 years ago. Isn't that extraordinary? Meanwhile, in the last 50 years, there has been a $50 trillion transfer of wealth from the bottom 90 percent to the top 1 percent. So, you have an economy where workers are working hard and going nowhere in a hurry. They're having to pay rent; they're having to buy food and pay for health care. They don't have enough money to save. And that's why you have almost half of older workers with nothing in the bank as they face retirement. Then, in retirement, they're living on terribly low wages, because Social Security benefits, in many respects, are inadequate.

So what's to be done?

The easiest thing to do is to make sure that the Social Security system is solvent long-term, and also that we increase benefits. How do you do that? Very simply. Right now, she [pointing to a staffer in the room] makes $1.8 billion — we pay very generous around here — and you [pointing to this reporter] make $160,000. I'm sure that's what you make. [Winks.] Who pays more into the Social Security Trust Fund?

We pay the same.

Exactly. Does that make sense? It doesn't make sense to anybody. So, if you lift that cap, in a nation in which the rich are not paying their fair share of taxes, you can increase Social Security benefits by $2,400 [per person annually]. It would also extend the life of Social Security for the next 75 years. That's an easy solution.

We've also got to work to bring back defined-benefit pension plans. And we've got to work on the Older Americans Act.

I hadn't realized the severity of this crisis, but you've got millions of seniors in America dealing with malnutrition. In the richest country on Earth, the absurdity of that! When you don't provide decent food or decent housing to people, or decent health care to people, they get sicker than they should be. And the health care system ends up spending much more than it should. So if you invest in prevention, whether it's nutrition, housing, health care, you keep people healthy, keep people happier, you save money.

Some of your Republican colleagues have floated an alternative idea to help address the looming funding crisis for Social Security: raising the retirement age.

It really is disgraceful. Many of these Republicans are literally on legislation now that would repeal the estate tax, which is a tax that applies to the top two-tenths of 1 percent of Americans. So their concern is to make sure that the Bill Gates kids, and Elon Musk's kids, are able inherit incredible fortunes. And then they want to raise the retirement age for working people. That is where the Republican Party is today, and that's unfortunate.

One of the biggest expenses for seniors is the ballooning cost of health care. How can you leverage your position on the HELP committee to start reducing those costs?

Ideally, what you do is what every other major nation on Earth does, and that is to guarantee health care to all as a human right. Is that a radical idea? Get in your car, go 50 miles away from here, in Canada, and you'll find it. They spent one-half of what we spent per capita on health care. Why is that? Because their health care system is designed to guarantee health care for people, not to make profits for the insurance companies. So, long-term — well, not long-term; I'd like to see it happen tomorrow — you need to move to a Medicare for All, single-payer system.

What we were focused on this last year in my committee was a revolution in primary health care. Needless to say, my Republican friends weren't all that sympathetic, but we ended up with something better than anyone anticipated — a reasonable increase for community health centers, a rather good increase for National Health Service Corps and a very good increase for teaching health centers.

We are also putting pressure on the CEOs of these companies who are charging Americans far and away the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, and often for products that cost pennies to manufacture.

Estimates are seven out of 10 people might need some form of long-term care in their lifetimes. And yet we know the system we have now is not working for many. Labor shortages make it difficult to find workers who can help people age in place. Assisted-living facilities are priced well beyond the means of average Americans, and many end up having to dwindle their savings to qualify. Why hasn't anything been done about this?

People say, "If they only understood." My colleagues in Washington do understand. They're not stupid. They don't give a damn. And that's the point that most Americans don't know. For many of my colleagues in Congress, mostly Republicans, giving tax breaks to billionaires and funding the military-industrial complex is far more important than protecting the needs of senior citizens or children.

Age has been a big topic heading into the presidential election, with some voters concerned about President Biden's mental acuity and physical fitness. What do you say to voters who ask you whether age should be a concern when heading to cast ballots in November?

What I say is that age is a factor, but so are a dozen other things.

Republicans say we need generational change. Really? Do you really need somebody who's 40 years old, who is active and strong and powerful and dynamic, who wants to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and give tax breaks to billionaires? Is that the generational shift you want? What a candidate stands for — that's most important. Can the candidate deliver? Looking at Biden's three and a half years in office, do I think he's done everything right? No. Needless to say, I ran against him and have strong disagreements with him. But if you look at his record, it is a very solid record that he can defend. And from somebody who knows the president fairly well, I can tell you that he is more than capable of doing his job.

If you contrast him to Mr. Trump, and you look at what Trump stands for — which is undermining American democracy, denying the reality of climate change, trying to take away women's rights to control their own bodies, trying to give massive tax breaks to billionaires — the choice is pretty clear.

I haven't heard anybody questioning your competency, but—

Well, besides my wife.

But I assume you're taking into account your own age or health as you think about whether to run again. Have you made a decision on that?

No. One thing that sticks in the craw of many Americans is never-ending elections. And I gotta tell you, I met with many, many people the other day, and no one came up to me and asked me whether I'm going to run. The media always asks me, because for media, it's very interesting. It's easy and interesting to cover a campaign, right? It's easier than covering the issues that we're talking about today, which are much more important.

What keeps you going?

The truth is, there are wonderful people throughout this country who are trying to do really good things. We see young people fighting for all kinds of change, sometimes with success. We're seeing revolutions taking place in health care, women's rights, gay rights. We're seeing the revitalization of the labor movement, very important. That inspires me.

Just last week, we were out in Lamoille County, where we saw people at an addiction center in Johnson doing really extraordinary work. We went to people who work at EMS, doing really beautiful work, underpaid. Go to the community health center in Morrisville, where people are dedicated to providing quality primary care. Go to the sheriff's department — being a cop in rural America is not easy work — they're trying to do their best. You see all that and you get inspired, and you want to do what you can to help.

But the other thing that inspires me is: I worry very much about the future of this country, especially if Trump is elected. I worry about the many crises that we face. And I want to transform this country in a very different way.

This interview was lightly edited and condensed for clarity and length.