The Connecticut General Assembly passed a bill that would raise Connecticut's minimum wage to $10.10 an hour by 2017. The legislation makes the state the first in the nation to endorse President Barack Obama's goal for the national minimum wage.
Republican senators offered a variety of amendments to the bill, but all were been defeated.
A bus tour drew up in Hartford Wednesday aimed at gathering support for raising the minimum wage. The Give America a Raise bus was greeted by Governor Dannel Malloy, who first announced his enthusiasm for the president's minimum wage target back in January.
"If we get to $10.10, we will on that date be approximately where we were, adjusted for inflation, in 1968," he told the crowd gathered in Hartford. "You add in to '68 the increases in productivity of Americans we'll still be behind where perhaps we need to go. That's why it's so important that we get this done on a national basis, but it's also important that a few states lead."
Brad Woodhouse, President of Americans United for Change, said the tour aims to raise awareness of the issue ahead of a U.S. Senate vote scheduled in two weeks. "There are five or six Republican senators in play that we need to get to get to 60," he said. "We think we have all, or virtually all, of the Democrats. But we won't end after that vote -- we'll keep going."
Connecticut did not need to wait that long, as the bill to raise the state's minimum wage to $10.10 an hour by 2017 was up for a vote in the state House and Senate on Wednesday. Despite the misgivings of the many in the business community, Republicans turned down an opportunity to delay the vote.
