Elliott: It’s Thyme & Season For $15 Wage

Josh Elliott Thursday urged state legislators to support a $15 hourly minimum wage.

But he didn’t do so in his role as Hamden state representative. He did so as a small business owner who believes that a higher minimum wage will cost him in the short term, but will boost the economy, and his store, in the long run.

Elliott was one of dozens of people to testify in Hartford on Thursday during a daylong state Labor and Public Employee Committee hearing on three proposed bills that would raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2022. The state’s current minimum wage is $10.10 per hour.

Over three hours into the marathon hearing, Elliott approached the microphone to address the committee. He told his legislative colleagues that he was speaking in support of the bills not as a fellow representative and outspoken member of the House Progressive Caucus, but as the owner of the Thyme & Season natural foods markets in Hamden and Shelton.

“I do not think about this in terms of the moral aspect,” said Elliott. ​“But in terms of the economic aspect.”

Elliott reiterated what many advocates for the minimum wage increase said over the course of the day: that when Connecticut raised its statewide minimum wage to $10.10 in 2017, the minimum wage reached the same inflation-adjusted value it was at in 1968.

More money in the pockets of low-income workers means more money circulating in the state’s economy, Elliott said. His comments called back to testimony earlier in the day made by the Economic Policy Institute’s David Cooper, who said that 70 percent of the American economy is tied to consumption. ​“If folks don’t have money to spend,” Cooper said Thursday morning, ​“that’s going to hamper economic growth.”

Elliott admitted that, as the owner of two natural foods markets that employ 45 people each, he does not pay $15 to all of his employees. Starting pay for some of his jobs is $10.50, he said.

“It’s very difficult to be a business owner and to be a progressive in this environment,” he said, ​“because, to a lot of people, that means being hypocritical.

“To me, I would like to see a change in our system, to see the base wage change for everybody across the board. As a small business owner, we will get hit first, but it will filter up.”

For every year that Connecticut does not increase the minimum wage, he said, that minimum loses 1 to 3 percent of its value due to inflation. He called on the committee members to tie the proposed $15 minimum wage to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), so that it will be raised automatically along with inflation.

Echoing one of the many concerns raised over the course of the day by skeptics of the proposed minimum wage raise, Watertown State Rep. and committee member Joe Poletta asked Elliott if he will have to raise prices at his stores if the minimum wage goes to $15 per hour.

Yes, Elliott said, some of the cost increase from a higher minimum wage would indeed be passed along to customers. Some of the cost increase he would likely have to take out of his own pocket book as the stores’ owner.

But, he said, because his employees will be making more if the bill passes, then they and all other low-income workers throughout the state who happen by his store will be spending more as well.

“It ends up being a virtuous cycle,” he said. He may take the hit in the short run, but people will spend more and buy more in the long run.

Poletta asked if passing a $15 per hour minimum wage along with other Democrat-backed proposals like highway tolls and increased sales taxes simply means giving more money to low-income people with one hand, and taking it away from them with the other.

“Aren’t we in essence robbing Peter to pay Paul?” he asked.

“We wouldn’t have to rob Peter to pay Paul if we would just pay Paul,” replied New Haven State Rep. and Labor and Public Employees Committee House Chair Robyn Porter.

According to one estimate, she said, raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour would add over $1 billion per year to the paychecks of the lowest-wage works in the state.

“At the end of the day, businesses will benefit,” she said. ​“Initially, some small businesses will take a hit. But the working people of this state have been taking a hit for decades. I think it time that we answer the call that we heard at the ballot box in November.”

The 2019 Agenda

Bill #	Status	Summary	Sponsors
SB 431	Committee Denied	To reform the property tax system.	Martin Looney
SB 788	Committee Denied	To create more revenue options for municipalities with a large percentage of properties that are exempt from property tax.	Martin Looney, Juan Candelaria, Roland Lemar, Toni Walker, Robyn Porter, Al Paolillo, Michael DiMassa
SB 475	Committee Denied	To increase municipal revenue by raising the sales tax.	Martin Looney
SB 454	Committee Denied	To create a more efficient educational system by consolidating small school districts.	Martin Looney
SB 27	Committee Denied	To reduce prescription drug prices under the Medicaid program.	Martin Looney
SB 30	Committee Denied	To prohibit copayment accumulator programs.	Martin Looney
SB 34	Committee Denied	To prohibit the delivery, issuance for delivery or renewal of short-term health insurance policies in this state that do not provide coverage for essential health benefits.	Martin Looney
SB 48	Sent to the Floor	To require manufacturers of brand name prescription drugs to provide samples of such drugs to manufacturers of generic prescription drugs.	Martin Looney
SB 32	Committee Denied	To establish a public health insurance option.	Martin Looney
SB 1	Passed	To create a paid family and medical leave program.	Martin Looney, Gary Winfield
HB 5004	Gov. Signed	To provide more economic security to Connecticut families by increasing the minimum fair wage.	Robyn Porter, Juan Candelaria, Josh Elliott, Alphonse Paolillo, Michael D’Agostino, Michael DiMassa, Patricia Dillon, Roland Lemar, Toni Walker
SB 64	Sent to the Floor	To prohibit an employer from coercing employees into attending or participating in meetings sponsored by the employer concerning the employer’s views on political or religious matters	Martin Looney
SB 496	Attached to Different Bill	To provide for the legalization, taxation and regulation of the retail sale, personal growth and recreational use of cannabis by individuals twenty-one years of age or older.	Martin Looney, Gary Winfield
SB 25	Sent to the Floor	To restore the electoral privileges of convicted felons who are on parole.	Martin Looney
HB 6073	Committee Denied	To allow a housing authority to expand its area of operation to include high and very high opportunity census tracts within a thirty-mile radius.	Roland Lemar
HB 5273	Committee Denied	To establish as of right multifamily housing zones within one-half mile of all fixed route transit stops.	Roland Lemar
HB 5722	Committee Denied	To establish a public health insurance option.	Roland Lemar, Pat Dillon, Josh Elliott
HB 5595	Attached to Different Bill	To authorize and regulate the sale and adult use of marijuana in this state.	Juan Candelaria, Roland Lemar, Toni Walker, Robyn Porter, Pat Dillon, Josh Elliott
HB 6705	Committee Denied	To prohibit the Department of Correction from using solitary confinement in its facilities.	Gary Winfield, Juan Candelaria, Roland Lemar, Toni Walker, Robyn Porter, Josh Elliott
HB 6715	Committee Denied	To eliminate cash bail.	Robyn Porter, Josh Elliott
HB 7203	Committee Denied	To promote the safety of pedestrians by requiring motorists to grant the right-of-way to pedestrians who affirmatively indicate their intention to cross the road in a crosswalk.	Cristin McCarthy Vahey
HB 6590	Sent to the Floor	To allow local traffic authorities to establish lower speed limits on streets under their jurisdiction by holding a public hearing regarding such speed limits and providing notification of such speed limits to the Office of the State Traffic Administration.	Julio Concepcion
HB 7141	Passed	To define and regulate the use of electric foot scooters.	Roland Lemar
HB 7205	Sent to the Floor	To require a percentage of the cars, light duty trucks and buses purchased or leased by the state be zero-emission vehicles or zero-emission buses, establish a Connecticut Hydrogen and Electric Automobile Purchase Rebate Program and fund such program.	Roland Lemar
SB 969	Committee Denied	To provide basic labor standards for transportation network company drivers.	Matt Lesser, Peter Tercyak