As previously reported in this blog, Connecticut’s minimum wage will increase $1.00, to $14.00 per hour, beginning tomorrow, July 1. It is the penultimate step of a 2019 law enacting a series of tiered minimum wage increases that will reach the law’s goal of $15.00 per hour in June 2023.
Beginning in January 2024, the State’s 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.
In addition to enactment of the minimum wage increases, the 2019 law 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. The law also 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.
Jackson Lewis will continue to monitor this and other wage and hour developments. If you have any questions, please contact the Jackson Lewis attorney(s) with whom you regularly work.