On Election Day, Floridians voted to increase their state's minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2026--and businesses everywhere could feel the pain.
Florida's Amendment 2, which passed with a "Yes" vote of 61 percent, will incrementally raise the state's minimum wage to $15 per hour in six years, from its current $8.56 per hour. Florida is now the eighth U.S. state to incrementally raise its minimum wage to $15 per hour, and the first state to achieve it through a ballot initiative rather than congressional legislation. The distinction is important: Florida's amendment is being viewed as a nationwide test for voter support, and it passed with flying colors.
"The stakes were higher," Josh Altic, who researches ballot measures at Ballotpedia, a nonprofit resource website for voters, tells Inc. "Not to just pass the measure in Florida, but to show that this issue could win by 10 percentage points in a state that President Trump won."
The bipartisan nature of Amendment 2's success could help shatter the narrative that conservative voters tend to reject minimum-wage increases on principle--and propel a momentum shift in favor of a nationwide minimum-wage hike. The notion that the measure will gain wider adoption is cause for concern among some businesses and advocacy groups, in and outside the state.
But economists and policy experts say panic is unnecessary. Read our story to learn what the minimum-wage increase will really mean for small-business owners--and which states could follow Florida next. |
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