Connecticut raising minimum wage to $15 over Republican opposition, this week in the war on workers

Connecticut is becoming the fourth state to pass a $15 minimum wage law in 2019. The Connecticut legislature passed the minimum wage increase, which will be phased in gradually and hit $15 in 2023, then be tied to the cost of living, and Gov. Ned Lamont has said he will sign it into law. The state’s current minimum wage is $10.10 an hour, and more than 330,000 Connecticut workers will get a raise.

Listening to the state legislature debate the bill, 20-year-old McDonald’s worker Takara Gilbert told the Hartford Courant ”All I hear from [the Republicans] is about small businesses and nothing about the workers.” Democratic lawmakers, by contrast, were clear that even $15 is not enough, with state Sen. Gary Winfield saying that “We’re here talking about a subliving wage, that’s what this fight is for...because in the state of Connecticut right now ‚the living wage is larger than $15.”

”A $15 minimum wage will give me the peace of mind to know that I won't be scrambling to make ends meet at the end of every month,” McDonald’s worker Joseph Franklin said in a statement. “By joining together, speaking up, and going on strike, workers like me have turned $15 from dream to reality for millions of workers across the country.”

Unfortunately, tipped workers won’t be included in the full minimum wage, though the tipped worker minimum is well above the federal level of $2.13 an hour.

from Daily Kos http://bit.ly/2Jswkec