Seizing on another popular issue in a tough election year. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy called for raising the state’s minimum wage to $10.10 an hour by 2017 — and immediately earned the applause of New Haven’s most influential state legislator.
At a Bridgeport press conference Tuesday, Malloy proposed raising the wage to $9.15 an hour in January 2015, $9.60 an hour by January 2016, and $10.10 an hour by January 2017.
In other words, low-wage workers would get raises for five years in a row rather than having to wait to see if the legislature would pass a new raise each time. Minimum-wage workers already got two raises — to $8.70 starting this month, then to $9 a month starting next January.
As President Barack Obama and New York Mayor Bill DiBlasio have made income inequality a top national issue, Democrats across the country have seized on raising the minimum wage as an election-year plank.
New Haven state Sen. Martin Looney, the chamber’s majority leader, issued a statement applauding Malloy’s call.
“From President Obama to Gov. Malloy, momentum is building to address income inequality in this country,” the statement quoted Looney as saying. “People working full-time jobs should receive a wage that allows them to care for their families. A low minimum wage forces the government to subsidize the cost of employment while privatizing the profits. As a result, the costs are shifted to government in the form of aid to low-wage workers.”
An estimated 70,000 to 90,000 people in Connecticut earn the minimum wage. Supporters of hikes in the wage argue that lowest-wage workers need to at least keep up with inflation, and that making ends meet on the minimum wage is difficult. Opponents claim that raising the minimum costs jobs, a hotly debated conclusion among policy experts on both sides of the ideological divide.
Malloy referenced the national discussion in his official remarks Tuesday:
“There is a debate happening across our country on how to tackle the growing income inequality that is detrimental to our middle class families and to our economy. Part of tackling that critically important challenge is making sure that we recognize that a good and decent wage is good for workers and good for business. For too long, the minimum wage has not kept up with the cost of living. As studies have shown, the workers who would benefit from a minimum wage increase brought home 46 percent of their household’s total wage and salary income in 2011. When workers earn more money, businesses will have more customers. This modest boost will help those earning the least to make ends meet.”
AFSCME Council 4 Executive Director Sal Luciano also applauded Malloy’s move.
“This is important both to reduce our state’s income gap — the second largest in the nation — and to retain young workers who are on the verge of leaving the state because wages haven’t kept up with the cost of living. We ask the legislature not to delay but to take this issue up quickly and raise the minimum wage,” Luciano is quoted as saying in a union press release.
People voting "no" on the poll believe that it should rise to $13 or higher, not $10.10.