Connecticut’s minimum wage rises to $14 an hour July 1, up $1 and cheering low-wage workers while adding to business owners’ worries about labor shortages and inflation.

It’s the fourth annual increase since 2019 and the next raise, to $15 an hour, is set for June 1, 2023, following a national campaign by organized labor and its allies in state legislatures. Increases will be automatic beginning in 2024, pegged to an index calculated by the U.S. Department of Labor.

[ Connecticut’s minimum wage hits $13 an hour Sunday in phased-in climb applauded by labor and Democrats and criticized by business ]

State law signed by Gov. Ned Lamont in 2019 when the minimum wage was $10.10 an hour. Business, particularly small employers. fiercely opposed the legislation as financially burdensome and a blow to workplace flexibility.

“Businesses are struggling so hard now to find people,” said Eric Gjede, vice president of government affairs at the Connecticut Business & Industry Association. “That’s a bigger priority.”

Lamont said gradual increases would be easier for businesses to absorb. Critics say the minimum wage rises relentlessly regardless of changing economic conditions.

Since the law took effect three years ago, the economy briefly went into a recession during the pandemic in 2020, rebounded last year and is now in the throes of the highest inflation in more than 40 years. Another recession may be in the works if higher interest rates engineered by the Federal Reserve to cool...

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