Florida voters on Tuesday approved raising the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour over the next six years, which advocates say will lift the pay for hundreds of thousands of workers in the state’s service-heavy economy.
A supermajority of Florida voters approved the amendment to the Florida Constitution that will raise Florida’s minimum wage from the current $8.56 an hour to $15 an hour by 2026.
Although Florida’s current minimum wage is higher than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, supporters of Amendment 2 said it is impossible to live on that wage given the state’s cost of living.
Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour will increase the income of a quarter of Florida’s workforce, according to the Florida Policy Institute.
Florida joins seven other states that have made plans to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour over the next several years.