(The Post Millennial) – The Vermont teacher who was making mittens part-time, including the now-viral Bernie Sanders mittens, stopped making them because she was getting taxed too highly.
Jen Ellis, the lady behind the iconic and apparently very warm mittens, said in an interview with the press that it just wasn’t worth it to continue doing business, even part time.
Ellis commented, “People have been contacting me thinking that they can get mittens, and actually they can’t. I don’t have any more, and I don’t have much of a mitten business anymore because it really wasn’t worth it. Independent crafters get really taken for a ride by the federal government. We get taxed to the nth degree, and it wasn’t really worth it pursuing that as a business, even as a side hustle.”
According to The Federalist, the mittens were made from repurposed wool sweaters and lined with material from recycled plastic bottles, and they were a gift to Sanders, since Ellis is a fan, despite his penchant for raising taxes, especially on the middle class.
“I’m also super pro-Bernie and as a public school teacher, I can see every day how families are struggling. People are just trying to make ends meet and they need things like student loan forgiveness and free education and a lot of the things that Bernie is fighting for,” Ellis continued.
“I thought, ‘I’d like to make him a pair of mittens.’ And I did,” Ellis said. “I totally remember the night I did it. I was thinking to myself, ‘Is this crazy? I don’t even know this guy.’ But I wanted to make them for him, so I did.”
thepostmillennial.com/woman-who-knit-sanders-mittens-went-bankrupt-due-to-high-taxes