What is the average salary in Florida in 2023? What is a good hourly wage? It depends
What's the average salary in Florida? Or, more to the point, what's a good salary in Florida?
That depends on where you live, what you do, how many people you need to support, and what source you look at.
According to payroll company ADP, the median yearly income for wage and salary earners in Florida in October was $51,500 in Florida, which comes out to $24.76 an hour, a 6.4% increase over the same time last year. But that's a median average, the middle amount in the whole range of income. According to the Florida Bureau of Workforce Statistics and Economic Research Quarterly Census, the average annual wage in Florida in 2022 was $63,770, or $30.66 an hour.
Employment site ZipRecruiter, using employer job postings and third-party data, found an average of $48,669 per year as of Oct. 23, or $23.40 an hour, well under the national average of $42,223. The site said most salaries in Florida range between $33,875 and $62,012 annually.
What's the average hourly rate in Florida?
That's all for salary and hourly combined, however. As of Nov. 15, 2023, ZipRecruiter found the average hourly pay in Florida was $15.68 per hour, although the company said it "varies greatly" as much as $7.60 depending on skill level, location and years of experience.
"While ZipRecruiter is seeing salaries as high as $28.68 and as low as $7.22, the majority of Hourly Rate salaries currently range between $11.92 (25th percentile) to $19.52 (75th percentile) in Florida," ZipRecruiter said.
"Florida ranks No. 48 out of 50 states nationwide for hourly rate salaries," the site said. Florida's minimum wage increased in September to $12 an hour.
Is that enough? The Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach region had the highest rate of inflation in the country in October, more than double the national average of 3.2%, according to the Consumer Price Index. Daycare runs an average of $650 a month in Florida. Homeowners insurance premiums in the middle of an insurance crisis where companies are fleeing the state are an average of $6,000 a year for the ones that are left. Even car insurance is about 37% higher than the U.S. average according to Bankrate.com. And student loan repayments began again in October, with the total federal student loan debt balance in Florida was $105.4 billion (3rd highest in the U.S.), including outstanding principal and interest balances. We've got bills to pay.
What is a good hourly rate in Florida? What is a living wage in Florida?
According to MIT's Living Wage Calculator, a living wage for a single adult with no children in Florida to pay for necessities where they live was, on average, $17.72 an hour as of the first quarter of 2023, or about $36,857.60 per year.
Having a child increases the cost of living to a staggering $74,838 ($35.98 an hour), which is $13,000 more than Florida’s median household income in 2021. For two children you'd need $45.96, and for three you need to be making $60.66 an hour.
Non-tipped workers making minimum wage in Florida will see about $24,960 per year, before taxes.
For two working adults with no children, things get a little easier. A living wage would be $13.85 each. Add a child and it goes up to $19.91, add two and you'll want $25.07. Two working adults with three children will need to make $30.25 each, or a combined household income of $125,840.
A poverty wage for a single adult with no children in Florida, according to MIT, is $6.53 or $13,582, just below the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service's Poverty guidelines of $14,580 for the contiguous United States in 2023. A single person with one child is making a poverty wage at $8.80, with two it's $11.07, and for three children you'd need to make $13.34 an hour.
If your family has two adults, both working, the poverty wage is $4.40 each with no children, $5.54 for one child, $6.67 for two, and $7.81 per hour each to support the household at a poverty level.
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What Florida cities have the highest average hourly wages?
ZipRecruiter listed 10 cities where the typical salary for an hourly-rate job is higher than the Florida average.
West Palm Beach: $21.17, or $44,025 a year
St. Petersburg: $20.37, or $42.368 a year
Sarasota: $20.31, or $42,238 a year
Miami Beach: $20.01, or $41,611 a year
Plantation: $19.43, or $40,410 a year
Miami: $19.34, or $40,218 a year
Lakeland: $18.94, or $39,395 a year
Clearwater: $18.81, or $39,117 a year
Panama City: $18.75, or $38,995 a year
Tampa: $18,70, or $38,893
What is a good paying job in Florida? Here are the industries where workers get paid the best
What are the best-paid jobs you can get in Florida without a degree?
The highest-paid jobs (not counting business executive, winning football coach, insanely successful online influencer or university president) are almost entirely medical. Cardiologists make an average of $428,810, for example, and emergency medical physicians bring in $346,900 on average here, according to Business Insider. But there are a variety of jobs available in Florida that don't require a college degree and pay more than the national average, according to Indeed Career Guide:
Surgical technician: $109,782
Criminal investigator: $99,141
Pilot: $97,446
Real estate agent: $92,389
Hearing aid dispenser: $63,249
Insurance agent: $61,369
Elevator technician: $61,229
Crane operator: $60,005
Wind turbine technician: $59,100
Glazier: $58,796
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Florida income: Average salary, hourly wage, living wage, top cities
