In May 2019, Connecticut joined a host of other states, including New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, in passing a bill that, pursuant to a series of incremental increases over time, will raise the state’s minimum wage to $15.00 per hour. The first increase occurred in October 2019 and the next increase, to $12 per hour, takes place on September 1, 2020.  The law provides for $1.00 per hour increases every eleven months, until reaching $15 per hour in June 2023.

Once the $15 per hour rate is reached in 2023, each January 1 thereafter the minimum wage will be adjusted by the percent change in the federal Employment Cost Index (ECI) for all civilian workers’ salaries and wages for the one-year period ending on June 30 of the previous year.

The law also froze, at the then-current levels of $6.38 per hour for hotel and restaurant staff and $8.23 per hour for bartenders, the sub-minimum hourly cash wage that hospitality employers must pay employees who customarily receive tips.  Any shortfall, between the standard hourly minimum wage rate and what these employees make in a combination of tips plus the sub-minimum hourly rates, must be borne by the employer.  Finally, the new law eliminated a lower “training wage” that employers previously could pay for learners and beginners, while retaining a “youth wage,” of no less than 85% of the standard minimum wage, for the first 90 days of employment for unemancipated minors.