Voices from the Capitol

The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, a rate that has not gone up since 2009. As the current wage stagnates, its purchasing power erodes against inflation. The average living wage today—defined as an income threshold that provides basic shelter and food and keeps a person above the poverty ...

At Connecticut Voices for Children we focus our research, policies and movement building on the intersectional issues of affordable housing, criminal justice, fair employment and tax reform because we know that a child’s well-being is rooted in their family’s economic security. We have been th...

Gov. Ned Lamont kicked off this year’s state budget debate by urging lawmakers to avoid broad-based tax hikes as Connecticut’s economy crawls out of the coronavirus pandemic. At the same time, though, many of Lamont’s fellow Democrats noted that COVID-19 has battered households as well, and â€...

Vice President Kamala Harris visited Connecticut last week to tout the American Rescue Plan, the federal COVID-19 aid bill that will bring billions in funding to the state. Her visit came with a particular focus on the new federal child tax credit, which will bring a $3,000 yearly benefit per child ...

Connecticut families that rely chiefly on minimum-wage jobs could effectively lose more than half of the pay hikes they will receive by mid-2023 due to the potential loss of state benefits, according to a new report from Connecticut Voices for Children. The New Haven-based policy think-tank is als...

Connecticut’s tax fairness debate took another leap forward recently when the Senate’s highest-ranking Democrat proposed new taxes on high-value homes and on the capital gains of the state’s highest earners. Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, also said his caucus hopes to...

Low- and middle-income families with children would receive their largest state income tax break in nearly a decade under a new proposal to be unveiled Tuesday by the new co-chairman of the legislature’s tax-writing panel. The new child tax credit proposed by Rep. Sean Scanlon, D-Guilford, would p...

Low- and middle-income families with children would receive their largest state income tax break in nearly a decade under a new proposal to be unveiled Tuesday by the new co-chairman of the legislature’s tax-writing panel. The new child tax credit proposed by Rep. Sean Scanlon, D-Guilford, would p...

If you want to watch a real-time experiment on equality in America, pay attention to the way Covid-19 vaccinations are being distributed. So far, the results have been a little disheartening. The national news is full of bold-faced names posing under the cricket-click of news cameras as they roll up...

Over the next year, Gov. Ned Lamont has to help guide Connecticut’s economy out of the coronavirus pandemic and close a huge budget deficit. Many of the governor’s fellow Democrats say these things cannot be accomplished without doing something Lamont loathes: raising state taxes on Connecticutâ...