Hartford Business Journal

26 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | SEPTEMBER 7, 2026 Opinion & Commentary EDITOR'S TAKE CT's minimum-wage law deserves a closer look OTHER VOICES Revaluation delay sacrifices businesses without fixing Hartford's finances By Chris Powell D espite the claim made by former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin's congressional campaign that he had "straightened out" the city, his successor, Arunan Arulampalam, has found himself with a lot more straightening out to do. Hartford's financial condition remains dire even after the $500 million state bailout enjoyed by Bronin's administration. Arulampalam fears that the city's property revaluation, due to take effect in October, will devastate what's left of Hartford's homeowners, whose numbers city government is striving to increase. The problem isn't Arulampalam's fault. It's mainly a matter of inflation, technology and state government's mistaken policies. Inflation has driven up residential property valuations, which home- owners like in theory until they realize that they can't benefit from a higher valuation until they sell their homes, until which time they must pay more in property taxes. State government's long failure to facilitate enough housing construction has also driven up residential property values. After all, everyone who owns residential property has a financial incentive to keep housing scarce. Then there is the simultaneous collapse of commercial property values as white-collar workers increasingly work from home. Some of downtown Hartford's office towers are now half empty, and while demand for housing is high, converting office buildings to housing is difficult and expensive. The collapse of office building valuations might not be so bad in Hartford if the Lamont administration hadn't just defaulted again to the state employee unions about "telework," failing to achieve a new master union contract that would have authorized state agencies to require employees to come back to their offices. The Lamont administration's nominal policy is that state government employees are so efficient that they don't need in-person supervision. The administration's real policy is that it must capitulate to the unions on anything important to keep them supporting the Democratic Party in an election year. Then state policy — collective bargaining for state and municipal government employees and binding arbitration of their contracts — makes it almost impossible for Hartford city government and all municipal govern- ments to economize with their biggest expense, employee compensation. In effect, state government policy is that when times get tough economically, financial sacrifice must fall exclusively on taxpayers. When he was Hartford's mayor, Bronin tried to get financial conces- sions from city employee unions, and he was denounced for it by his rival in the recent primary campaign for the Democratic nomination for Congress in the 1st District. Bronin was called an enemy of organized labor for seeking those concessions, as if the only labor that counts is members of govern- ment employee unions, not people who work in the private sector, union- ized or not. Bronin easily survived the charge and won the primary. Quite apart from the impediments in state labor law, Hartford city govern- ment doesn't try too hard to reduce its own expenses, as shown by the recent scandal in City Hall, where the recently resigned treasurer spent tens of thou- sands of dollars on luxury junkets. But Mayor Arulampalam's solution to the looming disaster of Hartford's property revaluation is just to delay it by a year. State government has authorized the delay and now it's up to the City Council. This would perpet- uate the unfairness to owners of busi- ness property, risk more real estate bankruptcies and discourage business relocations to city properties whose valuations remain artificially high. Since business owners are a minority, they are easily sacrificed to solve the political problem. But sacrificing them won't solve the city's financial problem. The city always operates at a loss, dependent on frequent bailouts from state government through increased financial grants, often euphemized as "aid to education." Arulampalam seems to think that if the revaluation is postponed a year, safely past this November's state election, the city will get more bail- outs from state government without having stirred up controversy and taxpayer fears and resentment during the campaigns for governor and the General Assembly, thereby helping the Democrats to retain power. The mayor may be right, if not coura- geous or imaginative. But then, hardly anyone in authority in Connecticut is. Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for decades. He is the former managing editor of the Journal Inquirer. Greg Bordonaro Chris Powell C onnecticut's minimum wage will rise from $16.94 to $17.48 an hour on Jan. 1. The increase will occur without lawmakers voting on it, debating its economic conse- quences or examining whether previous increases improved the financial condition of low-income families. That's because a 2019 state law placed the minimum wage on autopilot. After a series of scheduled increases brought it to $15, annual adjustments became tied to a federal measure of wage growth. The law requires the state labor commissioner to calculate the adjust- ment using the 12-month change in the federal Employment Cost Index for wages and salaries. The adjustment covers the 12-month period ending June 30, and the new rate must be announced by Oct. 15. Supporters of indexing argue that it prevents the minimum wage from remaining stagnant as other wages, and expenses, rise. They point to the federal minimum wage, which has remained unchanged at $7.25 since 2009, as evidence of what can happen when every adjustment requires legislative action. But Connecticut's law operates on the assumption that regularly raising the wage floor will improve the lives of low-income workers. A new study suggests that question is far from settled. In an August working paper released by the National Bureau of Economic Research, UC Irvine economics professor David Neumark and Emma Wohl examined how minimum-wage increases affected low-wage workers across different household income levels. The researchers found that higher minimum wages were associated with a lower probability that low-wage workers remained employed, along with reduc- tions in working hours and earnings. Those effects appeared across house- hold income levels, including among poor and low-income families, although they were not consistently worse for the poorest workers. The study also found no evidence that higher minimum wages reduced poverty, extreme poverty or near poverty. Although hourly wages increased, the researchers found that those gains did not translate into higher overall earn- ings. Earnings declined even among some low-wage workers who remained employed, which the authors attributed to reductions in working hours. The report comes with caveats. It has not been peer-reviewed, relies on national data from 2003 through 2016 and wades into a long-running economic debate that remains unsettled. Other research has found that modest minimum-wage increases can raise workers' pay without causing major employment losses. Even so, the study raises questions Connecticut policymakers should not ignore, particularly because the state now has one of the country's highest minimum wages and its wage floor increases automatically every year. I'm not saying Connecticut should abruptly abandon annual adjustments. But the state should periodically examine how the 2019 law affects jobs, hours, earnings and employers. That review should pay particular attention to small businesses, which often have fewer options than larger companies to absorb higher labor costs. Policymakers should examine whether annual increases are causing smaller employers to raise prices, reduce hours, slow hiring or cut other expenses. If the policy is working as intended, the evidence should show it. The state must also stop acting as though a higher wage floor can compensate for soaring housing, childcare, healthcare and energy costs. Those problems require direct solutions. More targeted measures, including tax relief for low-income workers, may provide help without putting their employment at risk. Raising the minimum wage makes for an appealing political message, but whether it consistently leaves poor fami- lies better off is a much harder question. It's one Connecticut should be willing to ask. HIGHEST STATE MINIMUM WAGES RANK STATE MINIMUM WAGE 1 WASHINGTON $17.13 2 CONNECTICUT $16.94 3 CALIFORNIA $16.90 4 HAWAII $16.00 5 NEW YORK $16.00 6 RHODE ISLAND $16.00 7 NEW JERSEY $15.92 8 OREGON $15.55 9 COLORADO $15.16 10 ARIZONA $15.15 Note: The minimum wages are as of July 1, 2026. The District of Columbia has a higher minimum wage of any state: $18.40. | Source: Employment Policies Institute

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