Connecticut Minimum Wage 2026: $16.94/hr — 3rd Highest in the US

Connecticut minimum wage reached $15.00 per hour on June 1, 2023, under Public Act 19-4, and is now indexed to the Employment Cost Index (ECI) — a broader measure of labor costs than the Consumer Price Index used by most states. This means Connecticut's rate rises based on what employers are actually paying for labor, not just consumer prices.

What Is the Connecticut Minimum Wage in 2026?

$16.94 per hour, effective January 1, 2026. The rate is calculated by the Connecticut Department of Labor based on the Employment Cost Index for all civilian workers, published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Connecticut's minimum wage is governed by Public Act 19-4 (2019), which established a schedule of increases to $15.00/hr by 2023 and then indexed the rate to the Employment Cost Index. Connecticut is the only state that uses the ECI rather than the CPI for its minimum wage adjustment.

How Connecticut's ECI Indexing Works

Most states that adjust their minimum wage automatically tie it to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which tracks how much consumers pay for a fixed basket of goods and services. Connecticut does something different. Under Public Act 19-4, once the state's minimum wage reached $15.00/hr in June 2023, every subsequent January 1 adjustment has been set by the percentage change in the Employment Cost Index for all civilian workers — a quarterly measure the Bureau of Labor Statistics compiles from wages, salaries, and benefit costs actually reported by employers.

The practical difference matters. CPI-linked states raise their minimum wage based on what things cost to buy; ECI-linked Connecticut raises its minimum wage based on what employers are paying their workforce. In a tight labor market where employers are competing hard for workers, ECI growth can outpace consumer inflation — and in a slower labor market, it can lag behind it. That's why Connecticut's year-over-year increases ($0.69 in 2024, $0.66 in 2025, $0.59 in 2026) have been gradually shrinking even as the state's minimum wage remains among the highest in the country: employer labor-cost growth has been cooling off from its post-pandemic peak. The Connecticut Department of Labor certifies the new rate each fall based on the most recent ECI data available, and it takes effect the following January 1.

Connecticut Minimum Wage History (2019-2026)

Source: Connecticut Department of Labor.

What Connecticut's Minimum Wage Looks Like in a Paycheck

Numbers on a table are easier to reason about once they're translated into an actual paycheck. Here's what $16.94/hr comes out to at a few common schedules:

• 40 hours/week: $677.60 gross pay per week
• Biweekly (two 40-hour weeks): $1,355.20 gross pay per pay period
• Full-time, annualized (40 hrs × 52 weeks): $35,235.20 gross per year — matching the $35,235 annual figure in the summary above (the few cents' difference is just rounding)
• Part-time, 25 hours/week: $423.50 gross pay per week

Those are gross figures before federal and Connecticut state income tax, Social Security, and Medicare withholding, so actual take-home pay will be lower. Connecticut has no local income taxes that apply on top of the state tax, but individual withholding depends on filing status and other factors this article can't calculate for you. Anyone budgeting off Connecticut's minimum wage should treat the numbers above as gross pay, not take-home pay.

Connecticut Tipped Minimum Wage

Connecticut's tipped cash wage is $10.71/hr, with employers able to claim a tip credit of up to $6.23/hr toward the $16.94 full minimum wage. In other words, an employer can pay a tipped worker as little as $10.71/hr in direct cash wages, but only if that worker's tips reliably close the $6.23/hr gap up to the full $16.94/hr minimum. If tips fall short in any given week, Connecticut law requires the employer to make up the difference so the worker's total earnings never fall below $16.94/hr.

Here's how that plays out for a server working a 30-hour week: cash wages alone would total $321.30 (30 hrs × $10.71). To reach the full minimum wage of $508.20 for those 30 hours (30 × $16.94), tips need to average at least $6.23/hr, or $186.90 for the week. A slow week that falls short of that threshold obligates the employer to cover the gap.

Connecticut's published wage data reflects one statewide tipped cash wage and one tip credit — it does not show separate rates carved out for specific tipped occupations, such as a lower published rate for hotel and restaurant service staff versus a different rate for bartenders. If you work in a specific tipped role and have seen a different figure cited elsewhere, verify it directly with the Connecticut Department of Labor before relying on it — this article only reports the single verified tipped rate above.

How Connecticut Compares to Other New England States

At $16.94/hr, Connecticut has the highest minimum wage in New England, and it isn't especially close. Massachusetts sits at $15.00/hr — a rate that has held steady since January 2023 with no further scheduled increases. Rhode Island is at $16.00/hr, though it already has a scheduled bump to $17.00/hr on January 1, 2027, which would put it ahead of Connecticut unless Connecticut's own ECI-linked adjustment outpaces it. Maine sits at $14.65/hr, Vermont at $14.42/hr, and New Hampshire has no state minimum wage of its own — employers there default to the federal $7.25/hr floor, unchanged since 2009.

Just outside New England, neighboring New York adds a wrinkle worth knowing about if you're comparing regional pay: the statewide New York minimum wage is $16.00/hr, but New York City, Long Island (Nassau and Suffolk counties), and Westchester County all carry a higher local rate of $17.00/hr — which edges out Connecticut's $16.94/hr by six cents. So depending on which side of the Connecticut–New York border a worker is on, Connecticut's rate can be either the highest or the second-highest in the immediate region.

Connecticut's use of the ECI rather than the CPI for indexing means its rate may grow differently from its neighbors over time. Massachusetts and Rhode Island set their increases through legislation and fixed schedules rather than an automatic labor-cost formula, so a year where Connecticut's ECI-based increase runs hot — or cools off, as it has each year since 2024 — can change the regional ranking without any of the neighboring states changing their own law.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Connecticut's minimum wage in 2026?

Connecticut's minimum wage is $16.94 per hour, effective January 1, 2026. It's the second-highest state minimum wage in the country, behind only Washington's $17.13/hr.

Will Connecticut's minimum wage go up again in 2027?

Almost certainly, since the rate is indexed to the Employment Cost Index and adjusts every January 1 under Public Act 19-4. The exact 2027 figure isn't published yet — it depends on ECI data the Connecticut Department of Labor hasn't certified — so this article won't guess a number ahead of the state's official announcement.

What is the minimum wage for tipped workers in Connecticut?

$10.71/hr in direct cash wages, with employers allowed to claim a tip credit of up to $6.23/hr as long as the worker's tips bring their total hourly earnings up to the full $16.94/hr minimum wage.

Does every worker in Connecticut have to be paid at least $16.94/hr?

Most hourly, non-exempt workers do. Tipped employees can legally be paid a lower direct cash wage ($10.71/hr) as described above, and certain categories of workers — such as bona fide executive, administrative, and professional employees who meet Connecticut's salary and duties tests — are exempt from the state minimum wage. Connecticut sets its own salary threshold for that exemption rather than simply following the federal one: $1,320 per week, or $68,640 per year.

Does any city or county in Connecticut set a higher local minimum wage?

No. Connecticut applies a single statewide minimum wage — there is no Connecticut city or county currently listed with its own separate, higher local minimum wage rate, unlike states such as California, Washington, or New York, where cities like Seattle or San Francisco set rates well above the state floor.

Why does Connecticut use the Employment Cost Index instead of the Consumer Price Index?

Public Act 19-4 (2019) wrote the ECI into Connecticut's minimum wage formula specifically to tie future increases to what employers are actually paying in wages and benefits, rather than to what consumers are paying for goods and services. Connecticut is the only state that indexes its minimum wage to the ECI rather than the CPI.

How does Connecticut's minimum wage compare to the federal minimum wage?

Connecticut's $16.94/hr rate is more than double the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hr, which hasn't changed since 2009. Whenever a state minimum wage is higher than the federal rate, as Connecticut's has been for years, employers in that state must pay the higher of the two.

Related: Massachusetts Minimum Wage Guide · States with the Highest Minimum Wage · Connecticut Minimum Wage Data Page