Almost a full year and a half ago, the US Department of Labor (DOL) officially rid the federal regulatory bureaucracy of the so-called 80/20 Rule, which governed minimum wage calculations and requirements for tipped employees when they perform ‘non-tip’ functions. Since then however, individual states have sought to adopt their own versions of the 80/20 rule, and the state of Connecticut has become the latest. The state codified the 80/20 rule when Governor Ned Lamont signed House Bill 7501 on January 6, 2020. HB 7501, which is a compromise version of a bill the Governor vetoed last year, mandates that employers cannot have tipped employees spend more than 20 percent of their time on non-tipped activities without penalty. It increases the hurdles for employees to bring class actions against employees for alleged wage rule violations and mandates that the state labor department conduct random wage and hour audits of restaurants. The Connecticut minimum wage is currently $11/hour and going to $12/hour in September, 2020.