Florida's minimum wage is about to increase. Here's what workers should know

Florida's hourly minimum wage is scheduled to be $12 starting at the end of next month and is projected to hit $15 an hour by 2026.

In November 2020, voters approved a measure that would make the Florida's minimum wage rise for both tipped and non-tipped employees by $1 each year through 2026, beginning at $8.65 on Jan. 1, 2021. By Sept. 30 of the same year, the minimum wage was raised to $10 and the schedule for the annual increase was law.

What should Florida residents and employees know about the upcoming raise to the state's minimum wage?

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What is Florida's minimum wage?

Florida's minimum wage is currently $11 an hour for non-tipped employees and $7.98 an hour for tipped employees. Both of these will continue to increase by $1 until 2026.

When is Florida's minimum wage rising?

The minimum wage rates for both tipped and non-tipped employees will rise on Sept. 30 each year until 2026.

Who created the minimum wage?

The establishment of a minimum wage can be credited to former U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt who pushed for its establishment with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938. The FLSA banned oppressive child labor, set the minimum hourly wage at 25 cents and capped the maximum workweek at 44 hours. Previous attempts to set a minimum wage were blocked by the Supreme Court in 1935.

Due to the general public's opinion on labor and wages at the time, Roosevelt jokingly referred to it as an "unconstitutional bill," to his Secretary of Labor. Prior attempts at establishing federal labor laws often fell short in front of the Supreme Court, such as in the 1918 Hammer v. Dagenhart case concerning federal child labor laws or the 1923 case Adkins v. Children's hospital that voided the District of Columbia's law establishing minimum wages for women.

The night before signing the bill Roosevelt took to one of his signature fireside chats, a speech or conversation he would have through the radio so that people all over the U.S. could hear him speak in a more intimate manner, in order to speak about the upcoming changes.

"Do not let any calamity-howling executive with an income of $1,000 a day, ...tell you...that a wage of $11 a week is going to have a disastrous effect on all American industry," he said.

Roosevelt was concerned with what he perceived as the diminishing purchasing power of the "forgotten man," low-income farm and factory workers who were economically devastated by the Great Depression. He hoped that setting a minimum wage and increasing the purchasing power of most adults in the work force would help right the economy.

What is the living wage in Florida 2023?

When using the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) living wage calculator, the living wage in Florida is calculated to be $17.72 for people with no children, $35.98 for people with one child, $45.96 for people with two children and $60.66 for people with three children.

The living wage attempts to calculate how much a person needs to be paid an hour to pay for necessities where they live. Factors for the living wage include costs for housing, childcare, health care, food and more which makes it more likely to vary by state or city.

The living wage is a term coined after the work done by Molly Orshansky, a former employee of the Social Security Administration and the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, who created the poverty thresholds used officially by the U.S. government and then figured out how to calculate a cost of living for families of different sizes and makeup.

MIT's living wage calculator was created by Amy Glasmeier, professor of Economic Geography and Regional Planning at MIT, and uses more specific data to gauge the costs of basic needs of American families across different regions, cities and states.

What year will the minimum wage be $15 in Florida?

Should the annual schedule of minimum wage increases stay the same, Florida's minimum wage will reach $15 an hour on Sept. 30, 2026.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Florida minimum wage increasing to $12 an hour; living wage unchanged