Lamont praises bill on wages
Governor calls measure a ‘fair, gradual increase’ for the working class
Gov. Ned Lamont is poised to make good on a major campaign pledge when he signs a bill that will raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour over the next four years.
“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,” Lamont said in a statement issued just before 3 a.m. Friday, minutes after the Connecticut Senate approved the minimum wage bill. “I’m proud that Democrats came together and took another strong step forward to protect working families.”
The measure cleared the Senate on a party-line vote of 21-14. During more than six hours of debate, Republican lawmakers shared stories of businesses owners who cannot afford to provide a raise to their employees, given the state’s tepid economy. Democrats, meanwhile, spoke of how a higher wage would provide an important boost to those on the lower rungs of the income scale.
“This is one of the most important moments in my life, to actually be able to pass a law that will make a difference to so many people,” said Sen. Julie Kushner, a Danbury Democrat and retired union official.
Kushner concluded her floor speech with the rallying cry of labor organizers: “Sí, se puede,” Spanish for “Yes, we can.”
The bill would increase the current $10.10 hourly wage to $11 on Oct. 1, $12 on Sept. 1, 2020, $13 on Aug. 1, 2021, $14 on July 1, 2022, and $15 on Oct. 15, 2023. Future
increases would be tied to the Employment Cost Index, a measure of wage growth calculated by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. Lawmakers said the bill will benefit more than 300,000 workers in Connecticut, roughly one-fifth of the entire workforce.
Among them is Takara Gilbert, a 20-year-old Hartford resident who works as a food preparer and cashier at McDonald’s. “I believe everybody should be paid fairly,” said Gilbert, who watched the debate unfold from the Senate gallery. “It’s time.”
Republicans raised a number of objections to the legislation, saying it could hamper economic growth by making Connecticut a more expensive place for businesses, especially in concert with other costly proposals under consideration by the legislature, such as highway tolls and paid family and medical leave.
“The best way to help people is to lower taxes and lower the cost of living in the state,” said Senate Republican leader Len Fasano.
The impact of the wage hike will fall heaviest on local businesses, Fasano said. “If anybody thinks that raising the minimum wage in Connecticut is somehow going to hurt the profits at Target and Walmart, they’re sadly mistaken,” he said. “Who’s going to get hurt is the ma-and-pa stores, the small restaurants, the places in your community that are trying to survive … that’s where there’s not room to absorb or perhaps even pass on the costs.”
Republicans offered several amendments in an effort to dilute the impact of the legislation but each effort fell short.
Sen. Rob Sampson, R-Wolcott, expressed philosophical opposition to the measure, calling it “a dangerous policy that will impact our state for years to come.”
“You know what fixes poverty? Not an artificially minimum wage,” Sampson said. “It’s not social programs that are created by taxing one group of people to give the money to another. You know what fixes poverty? Economic opportunity. A thriving economy. Freedom is what fixes poverty, not the artificial rules that stifle economic growth.”
Democrats, who have been trying to raise the wage for several years now, have a different view. They say the increase will help address the state’s yawning wealth gap by giving low-income workers a nominal boost.
“We are now, in many ways, the most polarized economically … since the Gilded Age,” Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney said. “There’s been little or no real income growth for most people for decades.”
An employee working 40 hours a week at $15 an hour would make about $31,000 a year, compared with $21,000 at the current $10.10 hourly rate.
“This raise that we’re considering is going to make all the difference in the world, but frankly, it’s also not enough,” said Sen. Mae Flexer, D-Killingly.
Raising the minimum wage to $15 isn’t enough to pull workers out of poverty, said Sen. Gary Winfield, D-New Haven. “We’re here talking about a sub-living wage, that’s what this fight is for … because in the state of Connecticut right now, the living wage is larger than $15. What we are fighting for is for people to exist in conditions that I had to grow up in … and hoping that we can get there.”
The majority of minimum wage workers are women and several supporters of the increase framed the debate through the prism of gender.
“Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour brings Connecticut one step closer to eliminating the gender pay gap because nearly 60 percent of minimum wage earners in our state are women,” Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz said. “Women’s issues are economic issues and if we want to grow our economy, we need to ensure that women have financial security in order to provide for their families.”
Bysiewicz and Lamont ran on a platform that included raising the wage. But Lamont had pressed for phasing in the increase over four years and establishing a “training wage” of $10.10 per hour for workers aged 16 and 17 who work less than 90 days per year. Both provisions had been sought by the business community.
The bill makes no changes to the tipped wage. That means waitstaff can be paid a minimum of $6.38 an hour and bartenders a minimum of $8.23 an hour as long as they reach the standard minimum wage when tips are included. If they don’t, their employer must make up the difference.