ORLANDO, Fla. – Florida’s hourly minimum wage will increase at the end of the month as part of an ongoing six-year plan to push it higher $1 at a time.
Come Sept. 30, the minimum wage for non-tipped workers goes up from $11 to $12. For tipped workers, the rate will go from $7.98 to $8.98.
Sixty-one percent of Florida voters approved Amendment 2 in the 2020 general election, a plan to raise the state’s minimum wage by $1 every year until it reaches $15 in 2026.
[EXCLUSIVE: Become a News 6 Insider (it’s FREE) | PINIT! Share your photos]
The remaining pay increase schedule is as follows:
- $13 on Sept. 30, 2024
- $14 on Sept. 30, 2025
- $15 on Sept. 30, 2026
Orlando trial attorney John Morgan in a petition drive invested $6 million of his own capital to put Amendment 2 on the ballot.
“We can’t understand it if you’ve never felt it, but to move from $8.56 to $15, or from $10 to $15, for that person it’s a life-changing event, and so I had to do that,” Morgan told News 6 anchors Ginger Gadsden and Matt Austin after his big win back in Nov. 2020.
“One of my (business) partners was very pissed off about this. He lives up in Panama City Beach and he called me up and says, ‘All of my friends have found out that you’re my partner and I don’t think I am going to be able to get served in a restaurant for the rest of my life,’” Morgan recalled. “I said, ‘Well tell them, go (expletive) themselves. You don’t need them.’”
[STORY CONTINUES BELOW]
By Sept. 30, 2027, and each year thereafter, the amendment calls for the state to calculate further minimum wage increases based on the rate of inflation observed in the 12 months prior, using the Consumer Price Index. Changes from there would be instituted every following Jan. 1.
Get today’s headlines in minutes with Your Florida Daily: