HARTFORD — Democrats in the Connecticut Senate brought up a proposal Thursday night to further increase the state’s minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020.
The proposal was offered Thursday as a late-session amendment, and was discussed for nearly five hours before Democratic leaders tabled the measure for now. The bill could still come back up before the session ends next week, but Speaker of the House Brendan Sharkey said that his chamber wasn’t even aware of the bill and would need to discuss it before it could move forward.
It comes three months after the wage increased from $9.15 to $9.60 an hour. It is scheduled to climb again to $10.10 an hour on Jan. 1, 2017. In 2014, Connecticut was the first state to pass legislation approving a $10.10 wage, but there has been pressure to increase the wage further.
Republican senators took issue with the majority Democrats proposing another wage hike at a time when businesses are leaving Connecticut.
