Lazaro Aleman
news@greenepublishing.com
Florida’s minimum wage, which is currently $10 hourly, will automatically increase one dollar on Friday, Sept. 30, thanks to a constitutional amendment that voters approved in 2020.
The new minimums, effective Friday, Sept. 30, will be $11 per hour for hourly employees and $7.98 plus tips for tipped employees such as waitresses, bartenders and others who earn more in tips than in hourly wages.
Amendment 2, which Florida voters approved in November 2020, amended the state constitution to gradually increase the state’s minimum wage to $15 hourly by 2026, after which year wages will be adjusted annually for inflation, as has been the case ever since 2004.
Amendment 2 caused the minimum wage to go to $8.65 hourly on Jan. 1, 2021, from $8.56 hourly the previous year. It also established a schedule for the minimum wage to go up one dollar each Sept. 30 thereafter for five years. It went up to $10 in September 2021 and is set to go up to $11 this September, and then $12 in 2023, $13 in 2024, $14 in 2025, and $15 in 2026.
Employers in both the public and private sectors are required to pay the minimum wage rate, regardless of the size of the company or the number of its employees.
For tipped employees, who currently earn $6.98 hourly plus tips, it will go to $7.98 hourly plus tips this September. It will then go to $8.98 hourly plus tips in 2023; $9.98 hourly plus tips in 2024; $10.98 hourly plus tips in 2025; and $11.98 hourly plus tips in 2026.
Employers must comply with the law and can’t retaliate against employees who exercise their right to receive the minimum wage. The law allows an employee to bring civil suit in court against an employer to recover back wages plus damages and attorney’s fees if the employer fails to correct the problem after 15 days upon notification.
An employer who is found liable for intentionally violating the minimum wage requirements is subject to a fine of $1,000 per violation, payable to the state.
Florida was the eighth state in the country, and the first in the South, to raise its minimum wage to $15. The other states that had the $15 per hour minimum wage in 2020 were California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York.
Florida, however, was the first state to raise the minimum wage as high as $15 hourly by citizens initiated ballot rather by lawmakers.
At the time, Florida’s minimum wage hike was projected to affect 2.5 million workers in the state, according to estimates from the Florida Pay Institute, a self-described “independent, nonpartisan and nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing policies and budgets that improve the economic mobility and quality of life for all Floridians.”