Community Health Center raising minimum wage to $18 per hour

Article originally published in Hartford Business Journal

Middletown-based Community Health Center Inc. is raising its minimum wage for employees to $18 per hour on Jan. 1, CHC announced today.

CHC’s current minimum wage is $17.50, according to Leslie Gianelli, a CHC spokeswoman. CHC plans to increase the minimum wage to $18.50 in 2018 and has a long-term goal of raising the minimum wage to $19.50, she said.

Connecticut, meanwhile, will increase the state’s minimum wage from the current $9.60 per hour to $10.10 per hour on Jan. 1.

CHC began increasing its minimum wage four years ago and each year has added to that minimum amount prudently, CHC said in a news release.

The increases began after CHC, one of the nation’s largest community health centers, began evaluating its entry-level pay about five years ago. The evaluation showed Connecticut is an expensive place to live and the entry wage needed to reflect that, CHC said.

“As part of our mission, CHC strives to be a voice and vehicle for social change, and we believe paying a living wage helps us achieve that purpose,” Mark Masselli, president and CEO of CHC, said in the release.

The state’s minimum wage increase comes after Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed a law in 2014 that scheduled increases for workers in three stages. The coming change is the final step in a series of three scheduled increases under the law that first increased the minimum wage from $8.70 to $9.15 on Jan. 1, 2015; from $9.15 to $9.60 on Jan. 1, 2016; and finally to $10.10 effective Jan. 1, 2017. Connecticut was the first state in the country to adopt legislation establishing a $10.10 minimum wage, according to a news release Tuesday from the governor’s office.