Flanked by advocates and progressive Democrats, Gov. Ned Lamont signed a bill Tuesday increasing Connecticut’s hourly minimum wage to $15 over the next four-and-a-half years.
The new law will raise the state’s minimum hourly wage 90 cents to $11 on Oct. 1; to $12 on Sept. 1, 2020; to $13 on Aug. 1, 2021; to $14 on July 1, 2022; and to $15 on June 1, 2023.
Lamont inked the minimum wage bill — passed on a party-line vote in both chambers of the General Assembly — on Tuesday morning at Parkville Care Center in Hartford’s South End. The nursing home was selected to host the bill signing ceremony after raising its minimum hourly pay to $15 four years ago, officials said.
Connecticut is the seventh state to adopt a $15 minimum wage, and the fourth this year.
“This is perhaps one of the most impactful pieces of legislation for working families that a governor can sign, and I am proud to place my signature on this law because it is the right thing to do,” Lamont said in a statement Tuesday. “This is a fair, gradual increase for the working women and men who will invest the money right back into our economy and continue supporting local businesses in their communities.”
The minimum wage bill includes two concessions favored by the business community: a “training wage” of $10.10 per hour for workers ages 16 and 17 who work up to 90 days a year; and a lower wage for tipped workers, including wait staff ($6.38) and bartenders ($8.23).
Still, Republican lawmakers and certain employers argue the wage hike is too costly for companies and will largely benefit teens and other entry-level workers.
Opponents also say the $15 minimum wage will be expensive for towns and cities, which will bear an additional $24 million in costs due to the increase, according to a state analyst’s estimate.
Wage advocates, meanwhile, say the boost is a much needed and long overdue benefit for more than 330,000 workers currently earning the state’s $10.10 minimum wage, especially given Connecticut’s high cost of living.
Connecticut last approved a minimum wage increase in 2014, raising workers’ minimum hourly pay from $8.70 to $10.10 in Jan. 2017.
New Jersey, Illinois and Maryland have each passed minimum wage increases to $15 this year. California became the first state to raise minimum hourly wages to $15 in 2016, followed by Massachuetts, New York and Washington, D.C.
Nationally, almost a third of U.S. workers live in states that will raise their minimum pay to $15 an hour, according to the National Employment Law Project.
National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) last week urged Lamont not to sign the minimum wage bill, citing a recent study by a conservative research organization that said adoption of a $15 minimum hourly wage could cost the state 15,531 jobs.
