Florida’s lowest-paid workers are set to get a roughly three-hundred-dollar annual raise starting on January first. Currently, the hourly minimum wage in the state is $7.79, and it will go up by 14 cents in January.
Due to a constitutional amendment passed in 2004, minimum wage in Florida is tied to inflation, creating the salary bump. But one state senator doesn’t think it goes far enough.
Senator Dwight Bullard, a Miami Democrat, has filed a bill to raise the minimum hourly wage to $10.10 for every worker in the state. He says rising gas and food prices make it hard for low-wage earners to make ends meet.“These are no longer 16 – 17 year olds transitioning from young adulthood to adulthood. These are people trying to raise families", Bullard explained. "The average age of fast food workers now is well over the age of 25; a disproportionate number of those have children.”
Under current law, full-time workers making minimum wage earn about $16,500 per year. If Bullard’s measure were to pass, Florida would have the highest minimum wage of any state. But the bill, along with an identical one in the House, has yet to be heard in any legislative committee.