CT lawmaker has plan to solve cost-of-living crisis: redistribute wealth. It includes new pay levels

Hartford Courant – Tuesday, June 30, 2026
By Kaitlin McCallum

Amid a cost-of-living crisis, Connecticut officials have argued over how to bring down limited costs — like electricity and taxes — while having no means to address the larger issue: that while prices on food, housing and everything else soar, the government can’t increase the paychecks residents are stretching to cover widening costs.

Connecticut’s junior senator has suggested Congress do just that.

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy has introduced a bill to increase the federal minimum wage to $25 an hour, requiring large employers by 2032 and others by 2039 to pay what he says is a living wage. The bill would also mandate automatic, continued increases of the federal minimum wage to bring it in line with two-thirds of the national median wage.

The summary of the bill says its purpose is, “To place the Federal minimum wage on a durable path toward a living wage aligned with the national median wage, to require large, highly profitable corporations to lead the transition, to end all subminimum wages, and for other purposes.”

Doing so, the bill states, “ensures that wage standards rise with the economy, prevents future erosion of purchasing power, reduces reliance on public assistance, and promotes broad-based economic growth.”

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, as well as Sens. Andy Kim, of New Jersey and Ron Wyden, of Oregon, co-sponsored the legislation, called The Living Wage For All Act. U.S. Reps. Delia Ramirez, Illinois, Analilia Mejia, New Jersey, Jesús “Chuy” García, Illinois, and Lateefah Simon, of California, introduced companion legislation in the House.

Murphy offers some figures to justify his proposal: The federal minimum wage was last raised in 2009 to $7.25 an hour; since 1979, workers’ productivity has increased 92% while wages have risen by just 34%; 45% of American workers currently make less than $25 an hour.

Finally, he argues, “there is nowhere in America where a worker with just one dependent can afford their basic needs by working full time at an hourly wage under $25.”

Connecticut’s minimum wage, which is tied to the employment cost index and thus is adjusted each year, is set at $16.94 for 2026.

Gov. Ned Lamont in announcing the increase said, “Nobody who works full-time should have to live in poverty. For too long, as 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.”

However, the MIT Living Wage Calculator, which shows “the hourly rate that an individual in a household must earn to support themselves and/or their family, working full-time or 2080 hours per year,” pegs a living wage in Connecticut at $51.51 for a working adult and one child.

Murphy echoed Lamont in arguing for a $25 hourly minimum wage.

“If you work full time in this country, you should be able to afford to live. But wages are so low that parents work 60 hours a week and still aren’t sure if they’ll have lunch money for their kids,” Murphy said. “Our economy is not working for people and we have to put forward solutions that are as big as the problems American families are facing.”

At Lamont’s celebration of the state minimum wage increase in 2026, Connecticut Republicans said that the increases put an unreasonable burden on small business owners and stifle economic growth.

A 2024 Congressional Budget Office analysis of the potential impacts of increasing the federal minimum wage projects “In general, increasing the federal minimum wage would raise the earnings and family income of most low-wage workers and thus lift some families out of poverty — but doing so would cause other low-wage workers to become jobless, and their family income would fall.”

Murphy, on Meet The Press Sunday, said the wage increase is a step to “unrig our economy” and make capitalism work “for the common good.”

“If you ask Democrats in an open survey what they think the minimum wage should be, they say $27. If you ask Republicans, independents, they say $26. You know why? $25 is just the minimum wage you need to pay your bills in this country and in the most affluent, most powerful country in the world, if you work full time, you should be able to pay your bills,” Murphy said.

“And by the way, we can afford it. It’s not like we can’t pay a $25 minimum wage. We just choose not to because we’ve become okay with dozens and dozens of people in this country making hundreds of billions of dollars. So this is the kind of idea that shows that the Democratic Party is ready to fundamentally change this economy. And I think this is the kind of idea that brings Trump voters over.”

The minimum wage increase is a part of Murphy’s vision laid out in his new book, “Crisis of the Common Good” to repair the rift in American society.

“You have 40% of Americans today that are working full time and don’t have enough money saved up in the bank for an emergency car repair. Meanwhile, we just saw the first trillionaire made in this economy. This version of capitalism isn’t working. Now, I make the argument in the book that we should embrace what I call a “common good capitalism,” a capitalism where we have more shared prosperity, where we want more millionaires and less trillionaires, where we have a higher minimum wage, where unions are more powerful.”

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