As of Wednesday, Sept. 30, Florida's minimum wage is $15 an hour. It's the culmination of six years of pay bumps that began after voters approved the "Fair Wage" constitutional amendment in 2020, raising the state's minimum wage from $8.56 an hour.
Florida now joins 18 other states with minimum wages at or above $15, more than double the federal minimum wage of $7.25, as national inflation makes normal shopping tougher for many families. Alaska will cross that line in July next year, and Michigan's own annual increase will near $15 by February 2028, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Florida's amendment barely squeaked by with 60.8% of the vote, narrowly exceeding the 60% needed for passage. And Republican state legislators
have heavily restricted citizen-led ballot initiatives in recent years, making it unlikely another minimum wage amendment will arise.
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So what happens now?
Florida's minimum wage again tied to inflation
Now that Florida's minimum wage has reached the amendment's $15-an-hour target, annual increases will again be linked to inflation rather than phased in to meet a set dollar target.
That's how it was handled between 2004, when another voter-approved amendment created the state's minimum wage in the first place, and 2020, except for a few years when the federal minimum wage jumped to $7.25 and the state matched it.
Starting on Sept. 30, 2027, the state Agency for Workforce Innovation will calculate an adjusted minimum wage rate based on the rate of inflation during the previous 12 months up to Sept. 1.
The agency will use inflation rates from the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for urban wage earners and clerical workers, unless the United States Department of Labor starts using another system. This is similar to how annual Social Security cost-of-living increases (COLA) are calculated.
When will Florida raise its minimum wage again?
The system reverts to inflation-based changes in 2027, and any adjusted minimum wage will go into effect on Jan. 1 of the following year, so the earliest the next state-ordered pay bump could come is Jan. 1, 2028.
Do Florida's tipped employees get $15 an hour?
Sort of, but they won't see it in their paychecks.
Tipped employees must receive the same minimum wage as other workers, but employers may apply up to $3.02 an hour in tips toward that obligation. The Fair Labor Standards Act allows this "tip credit," meaning employers can pay tipped employees the state minimum wage minus $3.02, provided tips make up the difference.
As of Sept. 30, minimum wage for tipped employees is $11.98.
Can you live on minimum wage in Florida?
The minimum wage is not the same as a living wage, which tries to calculate how much a person must earn per hour to cover basic necessities such as housing, child care, health care, and food while working full-time in the area where they live.
According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's living wage calculator, the living wage in Florida as of February 2026 is $24.09 an hour for one adult with no children, $39.87 for an adult with one child, $49.88 for an adult with two children, and $61.68 for an adult with three children.
C. A. Bridges is a journalist for the USA TODAY Network-Florida's service journalism Connect team. You can get all of Florida’s best content directly in your inbox each weekday by signing up for the free newsletter, Florida TODAY.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Florida's minimum wage now $15 an hour. Will it ever go up again?
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