Christine Stuart Photo
Robyn Porter at Tuesday’s signing.
Gov. Ned Lamont Tuesday signed into law a hike in the hourly minimum wage to $15 by June 2023.
Watching him sign the law was New Haven/Hamden State Rep. Robyn Porter, who has advocated the raise for years and shepherded it through the legislature Labor Committee, which she co-chairs.
“Raising the minimum wage is going to benefit hundreds of thousands of people in Connecticut, especially people of color and working mothers,” Porter was quoted as saying in a release. “That extra disposable income for each low-wage worker will go right back into the local and state economies, benefiting our communities and local businesses and producing more revenue for the state. A higher wage also will bring more dignity into the workplace. In the end, all of Connecticut will benefit.”
The law raises the wage, which is currently $10.10, to $11 this Oct. 1; $12 on Sept. 1, 2020; $13 on Aug. 1, 2021; $14 on July 1, 2022; and finally $15 on June 1, 2023.
After that, it rises along with the federal Employment Cost Index, so legislators don’t have to resume fighting about how much of a raise, if any, to give Connecticut’s lowest-paid workers.
Estimates of how many workers will immediately get raises range from 130,000 to 332,000. The number will top half a million by 2024, according to the governor’s office.
Gov. Lamont is threatening to veto another law that Porter and other progressive Democrats have spent years pushing to pass: the Paid Family and Medical Leave Act.
Click here for a full story by CT News Junkie’s Christine Stuart on Tuesday’s bill signing.
Fewer opportunities. Fewer hours. And oh, this same crowd wants to shrink your paycheck as a direct deduction for family leave.