Minimum Wage Hike in State Senate

Efforts are underway to modify a proposal to increase the state’s minimum wage. This comes after Gov. Malloy and House Speaker Brendan Sharkey said they would support a limited increase this year.
The original version of SB 387 would have increased the state minimum wage from $8.25 to $9.75 over the next two years. It also automatically increased the minimum wage thereafter based on changes to the Consumer Price Index. 
The governor, however, announced a more moderate proposal that increases the minimum wage by $0.75 over the next two years without indexing future increases to the CPI.
While the bill is well intentioned, the effect may not be what its advocates desire. Most studies over the past 20 years have shown that increasing the minimum wage actually results in job losses.
For young people, the issue is especially critical.
Just last year, at a conference called “Youth Unemployment: The New Great Depression,” the Connecticut Commission on Children said that “For young people, the Great Depression isn’t a history lesson – it’s a current event.
While the overall unemployment rate hovered around 8 percent last summer, it stood at 17.3 percent for those between the ages of 16 and 24.”
Making it harder for young people to get their first jobs and adding to employers’—especially small businesses’—costs and burdens is not the most prudent route to take when Connecticut’s economy is struggling to create jobs.
CBIA urges lawmakers to consider whether we want to focus on job creation, or whether we should increase the minimum wage. 
For more information, contact CBIA’s Eric Gjede at 860.244.1931 or eric.gjede@cbia.com.