HARTFORD, CT – Early this morning, State Senator Mary Daugherty Abrams (D-Meriden, Middlefield, Rockfall, Middletown, Cheshire) proudly voted for a bill designed to raise Connecticut’s hourly minimum wage to $15 an hour in five yearly steps by June 1, 2023 – a change that will benefit nearly a third of Connecticut’s workforce.
“Hundreds of thousands of workers in Connecticut earn the minimum wage, and it’s not enough for them to make ends meet. Not even close,” said Sen. Abrams. “It has long lagged behind inflation, and it’s nowhere close to what they need to support themselves. Over the next five years, we’re taking a massive step forward to fix that. After 2023, it will ensure the minimum wage matches federal inflation. I am so proud to stand with my colleagues and usher in a brighter future for so many in our state.”
House Bill 5004, “AN ACT INCREASING THE MINIMUM FAIR WAGE,” increases Connecticut’s hourly minimum wage from the current $10.10 per hour to:
After June 1, 2023, the bill would index Connecticut’s hourly minimum wage to changes in the federal Employment Cost Index.
The bill freezes employers’ shares of “tip credits,” which allow employers to count employee tips as a percentage of their minimum wage requirement, though it also requires tip credit value to increase and cover the difference between employers’ shares and minimum wage increases. Additionally, it changes the “training wage” for youth, eliminating a standard allowing employers to pay as low as 85 percent of the minimum wage for learners and beginners. The training wage now only applies to people under the age of 18, and is limited to the first 90 days of minors’ employment, rather than 200 hours.
Once the bill is signed into law by Governor Lamont, the first minimum wage increase will take effect on October 1 of this year.