Governor Ned Lamont is reminding Connecticut residents that the state’s minimum wage increased from the current rate of $13.00 per hour to $14.00 per hour beginning on July 1, 2022.

The change is the result of legislation he signed into law three years ago that schedules several increases in the minimum wage over a five-year period.

“For too long, while the nation’s economy grew, the income of the lowest-earning workers has stayed flat, making already existing pay disparities even worse and preventing hardworking families from obtaining financial security,” Governor Lamont said. “This is a fair, gradual increase for workers who will invest the money right back into our economy and continue supporting local businesses in their communities.”

“Governor Lamont and I are committed to making sure that our Connecticut economy works for everyone, and that includes our state’s low-income earners,” Lt. Governor Susan Bysiewicz said. “That’s why we voted three years ago to increase our state’s minimum wage at a steady rate, providing more financial security to families and providing residents the ability to continue supporting our local economy.”

Signed into law by Governor Lamont in 2019, Public Act 19-4 requires the minimum wage to increase five times over a five-year period, from the then-rate of $10.10 per hour to:

$11.00 on October 1, 2019;

$12.00 on September 1, 2020;

$13.00 on August 1, 2021;

$14.00 on July 1, 2022; and

$15.00 on June 1, 2023.

The increase of Connecticut’s hourly wage to $14 was an opportunity for Gov. Ned Lamont to share ground with some of his fellow Democrats who sometimes wish for a more progressive governor.

The minimum wage law requires the governor and legislature to consider a freeze if the economy retracts in successive quarters. According to Lamont, inflation was more a reason to increase the minimum wage than to freeze it.

“I think my least favorite way of dealing with inflation is having those that do a lot of essential work at the very lowest wages in our state and in our country not get a wage that at least keeps pace with inflation, which is what the increase does right now,” Lamont said. “Look, inflation has a lot of roots. I’d say the minimum wage is probably number 1,388 on the list.”

Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, is a labor-and-tax policy liberal who has developed a partnership with Lamont over increases to the Earned Income Tax Credit for the working poor, as well as the passage in 2019 of laws increasing the minimum wage and establishing a paid family and medical leave benefit.

“The history of the minimum wage is that every few years, there would be an agreement that the minimum wage had fallen farther and farther behind inflation, and then there would be a consensus to perhaps pass a slight increase, and then the same cycle would repeat,” Looney explained.

Looney said Lamont helped break that cycle.

Ultimately, beginning on January 1, 2024, that same law requires the minimum wage to become indexed to the employment cost index, which is calculated by the U.S. Department of Labor, and for the first time in Connecticut, the rate will grow according to economic indicators.