Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Thank clerks with wage hike
The pandemic has broadened our definition of hero.
Joining the ranks of doctors, nurses, cops and firefighters are grocery store cashiers, home health aides, restaurant servers and fast-food cooks.
They’ve been going to work every day during the coronavirus outbreak to keep us fed, stocked up and healthy. The public has responded with words of thanks, generous tips and appreciative sidewalk chalk art.
That’s all very nice, but here’s how Floridians can show their gratitude in a more tangible and enduring way: By voting yes on Amendment 2 this fall, which would gradually raise the state’s minimum wage until it’s $15 an hour by September 2026. After that, it would increase each year based on inflation.
We can think of no better expression of support for essential workers than by agreeing they should have the dignity of a job that pays something akin to a living wage.
Because right now, we’re not even close to that.
Florida’s minimum wage went up by a dime on Jan. 1, bringing it to $8.56 an hour. For workers who receive tips, the minimum wage is $5.54 an hour.
For non-tipped workers, full time employment at $8.56 an hour translates into $17,600 a year. That’s about the average cost per year of renting an apartment in Orlando or South Florida, with a few hundred bucks left over for an entire year’s worth of bills for utilities, car insurance, day care and food.
The Florida Chamber of Commerce notes that very few people in the state — barely more than 1% — held full-time jobs that pay minimum wage. But it also noted that nearly 2.7 million workers — one in every four at the time — made less than $15 an hour.
That includes the cashier who’s ringing up your precious toilet paper and earns an average of $11 an hour, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ May 2019 report.
And the cook who’s frying your chicken nuggets and averages $10.66 an hour. The home health aide who’s helping your grandpa averages $11.84 an hour. The server who’s running food out to your car window so you can avoid infection averages $12.66 an hour. The child-care worker who watches the children of doctors and nurses and store clerks and averages $11.71 an hour.
A United Way study released last year found nearly half the households in Central Florida and South Florida struggled to cover life’s basic necessities.
How, after watching these low-paid workers risk their personal health and the health of their families, can Floridians possibly turn around and tell them they’re not worth $15 an hour?
This proposed increase is the sequel to a constitutional amendment voters approved in 2004 by a margin of 71% to 29%. That measure set Florida’s minimum wage at $6.15 an hour, $1 above the federal minimum wage at the time. It required annual increases tied to inflation, but over the past 15 years that’s meant an increase of just $2.41 per hour.
Helping Florida’s low-wage workforce didn’t have to come to a constitutional amendment. But at nearly every turn lawmakers have acted against the interests of low-wage workers.
They passed laws prohibiting local governments from setting their own minimum wages, and then stopped them from requiring employers to provide paid sick leave. Lawmakers refused to accept federal help to expand Medicaid eligibility. They created an unemployment system designed to punish rather than help people who lost their jobs. They skimmed millions each year from a trust fund that was supposed to help build affordable housing.
Business groups, which have been in lockstep with the Legislature, will line up against the minimum wage measure, which under Florida law needs to get 60% of the vote to pass.
The Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association warns it’ll mean higher costs for businesses, which will cut jobs and hours.
The first increase will, in fact, take effect in September 2021 as businesses in Florida are still trying to recover from the economic consequences of the pandemic.
But businesses won’t be the only ones still recovering. Their low-paid employees also will be trying to get back on their feet.
The calculation may come down to whether Floridians are willing to pay a little more for their toilet paper or their chicken nuggets to boost the pay of workers — the same ones we claim to be so grateful for now.
If we’re not willing to do that, if we’re not willing to raise their minimum wage, all that gratitude will prove as fleeting as sidewalk chalk in a rainstorm.