Florida

When will minimum wage go up again in Florida and how much? What is minimum wage in 2025?

Published

1 year ago

January 3, 2025

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When will minimum wage go up again in Florida and how much? What is minimum wage in 2025?

Minimum wage workers in Florida, your paychecks will get another bump this year and the next on the way to $15 an hour.

That’s thanks to the amendment Floridians approved in 2020 to raise the wage incrementally, first from $8.65 to $10 in 2021 and then another dollar every year until it reaches $15 an hour for non-tipped employees and $10.98 for tipped employees.

It’s part of a growing trend for higher minimum wages. On Jan. 1, 2025. 21 states and 48 cities and counties raised theirs, according to a report provided exclusively to USA TODAY by the National Employment Law Project, a worker advocacy group. More states and a few more cities and counties will be raising their minimum later this year.

The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour and has been since 2009.

What will Florida’s minimum wage be in 2025?

Florida’s minimum wage will become $14 an hour for non-tipped employees and $10.98 for tipped employees.

When will Florida’s minimum wage rise again?

The minimum wage rates for both tipped and non-tipped employees will rise on Sept. 30, 2025, and will rise again in 2026.

Florida passes $15 minimum wage Amendment 2

Florida voters approve raising the state’s minimum wage to $15 per hour.

Rob Landers, FLORIDA TODAY

Which states have the highest minimum wage?

Several states have passed minimum wage increases in recent years. The current highest minimum wages in the country, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, are:

Washington D.C.: $17.50 an hour
California: $16.50 an hour
Washington state: $16.66 an hour
Connecticut: $16.35
New York (New York City, Nassau County, Suffolk County, & Westchester County): $16.50 an hour
New Jersey: $15.49 an hour
Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, rest of New York, Rhode Island: $15 an hour

Fourteen states pay the federal minimum rate of $7.25, as all states must do at a minimum for jobs covered by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. Some have higher rates for businesses that meet certain conditions.

Georgia and Wyoming businesses pay $5.15 an hour, although in Georgia it only applies to employers of six or more employees. In Montana, businesses with gross annual sales of less than $110,000 pay $4 an hour.

Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee have no state minimum wage law.

What is the highest minimum wage in the country?

Burien, Washington will set its minimum pay at $21.16 for employers in King County with 500 or more workers.

What happens after Florida’s minimum wage hits the $15 cap?

The amendment was intended to get minimum wages more in line with current costs of living. After it reaches $15, the state will return to the previous method of calculating cost-of-living adjustments tied to the Consumer Price Index.

What is the living wage in Florida?

The minimum wage is different from a living wage, however, which tries to calculate how much a person needs to earn per hour to afford the necessities — housing, childcare, health care, food, etc. — where they live.

In February 2024, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) living wage calculator found that the living wage in Florida is $22.43 an hour for one adult with no children, $37.27 for an adult with one child, $45.36 for an adult with two children and $58.76 for an adult with three children.

How is the minimum wage for tipped employees calculated in Florida?

Employers of tipped employees must pay their employees minimum wage, but they can count the tips the employees receive toward it up to the maximum of $3.02, the allowable Fair Labor Standards Act tip credit of 2003. So the direct wage they must pay is the minimum wage minus $3.02.

The current minimum wage in Florida is $13 an hour, so the tipped minimum wage is $9.98. Both will go up a dollar each until they reach $15 an hour for non-tipped employees and $11.98 for tipped employees.

Do minimum wage laws in Florida apply to all employers?

No, there are certain occupations and situations where the Department of Labor allowed exemptions to the federal minimum wage law where employees may be paid less. These include, among others:

Executive, administrative and professional employees
Commissioned sales employees
Farm workers
Seasonal or recreational establishment workers
Newspaper delivery people
Federal criminal investigators
Informal workers such as babysitters
Minors under certain circumstances
Student workers
Employees with disabilities if the employer has a certificate from the Department of Labor allowing it (a measure to encourage more employers to hire people with disabilities)
Nonprofit or educational organizations that have applied for an exemption, and others.
Employees of enterprises with an annual gross income of less than $50,000

What was the minimum wage in Florida before?

Florida’s minimum wage was tied to the federal minimum wage created in 1938 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938 which set the minimum hourly wage at 25 cents, banned oppressive child labor and capped the maximum workweek at 44 hours. But in 2005, Florida voters approved Amendment 5 to establish a state minimum wage over the federal standard. Florida has paid its minimum wage workers more than the federal minimum ever since.

Amendment 5 brought the hourly wage for non-tipped employees to $6.15, a dollar more than the federal minimum at the time, and required the Department of Economic Opportunity to calculate an adjusted state minimum wage rate based on the rate of inflation for the 12 months prior to Sept. 1, based on the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers. New adjustments were to take effect the following Jan. 1.

There have been several increases since:

2005: Raised to $6.15 an hour
2006: Raised to $6.40 an hour
2009: Raised to $7.21 an hour
2010: Raised to $7.25 an hour
2016: After 6 years, raised to $8.05 an hour
2017: Raised to $8.10 an hour
2018: Raised to $8.25 an hour
2019: Raised to $8.45 an hour
2021: Raised to $10 an hour to meet requirements from the 2020 amendment
2022: Raised to $11 an hour
2023: Raised to $12 an hour
2024: Raised to $13 an hour

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Florida

Central Florida man arrested after Miami Beach hit-and-run crash leaves 2 pedestrians dead, police say

Published

4 hours ago

March 20, 2026

Press Room

Central Florida man arrested after Miami Beach hit-and-run crash leaves 2 pedestrians dead, police say

Updated on: March 20, 2026 / 8:35 AM EDT
/ CBS Miami

A central Florida man has been arrested after Miami Beach police say he hit and killed two pedestrians on Collins Avenue and then fled the scene on Wednesday night.

Miami Beach police said that around 9:07 p.m., a black Nissan Sentra, which was being driven by Adan Negron-Morris, 42, of Lakeland, was spotted heading eastbound on 71st Street toward Collins Avenue in a reckless manner, and without the vehicle’s headlights on.

Negron-Mossis ended up speeding past a Miami Beach police officer who was conducting a high-visibility patrol detail in the area of Indian Creek Drive, and that officer was attempting to respond just as several 911 calls were being made about a reckless driver in the area, police said.

Negron-Morris then turned left onto Collins Avenue, and police said he eventually hit two pedestrians at the intersection of 73rd Street and Collins Avenue.

Miami Beach police said the vehicle continued to 74th Street and Collins Avenue and came to a stop. At that point, police said Negron-Morris got out of the car and fled into a nearby Walgreens.

Witnesses were able to direct responding police officers to Negron-Morris’s location, and he was taken into custody.

Police said that oofficers in the area immediately began to render aid to the two pedestrians who were hit until Miami beach Fire Rescue could arrive at the scene. Both victims were then rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center in critical condition, where they later died.

Miami Beach police said that a DUI investigation was immediately launched after the incident, and Negron-Morris was taken to the Miami Beach Police Department’s Criminal Investigations Division.

Negron-Morris has since been charged with leaving the scene of a crash with death and vehicular manslaughter.

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Florida

Florida Gov. DeSantis criticizes sheriffs who want undocumented immigration reform

Published

17 hours ago

March 19, 2026

Press Room

Florida Gov. DeSantis criticizes sheriffs who want undocumented immigration reform

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Gov. Ron DeSantis rebuked some of Florida’s top law enforcement officials Thursday, criticizing their calls to Congress and President Donald Trump to work on a path to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants.

“This idea that unless you’re an axe murderer you should be able to stay, that is not consistent with our laws, and it’s also not good policy,” DeSantis said at an event in Bradenton.

[WATCH: State Immigration Enforcement Council meeting (via The Florida Channel)]

On Monday, the State Immigration Enforcement Council, a group of local law enforcement officials who were appointed to advise the State Board of Immigration Enforcement on illegal immigration enforcement, decided to send a letter to federal government officials asking them to work on a path to citizenship for noncriminal undocumented immigrants who pay a fine.

“My job as governor is to do what’s best for the people, not what any one person who gets elected in one county thinks,” DeSantis said.

[WATCH: DeSantis unveils an aggressive immigration and border security policy (from 2023)]

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, chair of the council, said Monday that immigrants who aren’t criminals should be able to stay in the country, under certain conditions. Other council members, like Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri and Charlotte County Sheriff Bill Prummell, agreed with him.

“What’s right’s right, and what’s not’s not,” Gualtieri said at the meeting, “And going after the mom, who’s got three kids, who’s just trying to make a living, who’s been here for 15 years…that isn’t right, and they do need to fix it.”

DeSantis said Florida has become the national standard for illegal immigration enforcement after enacting legislation and pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into law enforcement, state-run detention facilities, and working directly with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“Who does (border czar) Tom Homan cite as the way to do this? He cites Florida without hesitation,” DeSantis said. “We’ve got to keep the momentum going, we certainly don’t want to backtrack on this.”

Judd and Gualtieri, two of the four sheriffs on the council, have consulted DeSantis and the legislature over the past couple of years about local law enforcement’s role in illegal immigration enforcement.

[WATCH: DeSantis outlines immigration priorities ahead of Trump’s new presidency (from 2025)]

The switch to advocating for a path for citizenship is a 180-degree turn for Judd. Last year in a council meeting, Judd asked Trump to sign more executive orders to allow state law enforcement to expedite the removal of undocumented immigrants, including those who do not have removal orders or criminal records.

But on Monday, Judd suggested writing a letter to elected officials, including Trump, the Speaker of the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate Majority Leader, and federal agencies to work on a path to citizenship.

All council members except Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters, who was not at the meeting, agreed.

“There are those here that are working hard, they have kids in college, are in school, they’re going to church on Sunday, they’re not violating the law, and they’re living the American dream,” Judd told council members.

After receiving backlash for his comments, at a press conference the day after the meeting, Judd said he heard from sheriffs across the state who called him in support.

The sheriff, who stood his ground and again called for the federal government to work on a path to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants, calling it “common sense.”

“They’re not a drag on society. In fact, they’re helping society. We need to find a path for them,” Judd said.

[WATCH: Sheriff Judd calls on feds to pull back mass deportation campaign]

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Florida

Florida’s Red Wall on Immigration Is Starting to Crack

Published

1 day ago

March 19, 2026

Press Room

Florida’s Red Wall on Immigration Is Starting to Crack

Cracks are widening in the Republican Party’s support for the Trump administration’s hardline approach to immigration enforcement. The latest fissure developed this week in deep-red Florida. A panel of Republican sheriffs and chiefs of police, the backbone of Florida’s law enforcement establishment, agreed on Monday to draft a letter to President Donald Trump and congressional leaders urging them to stop rounding up immigrants who they said arrived in the U.S. “inappropriately” but have otherwis

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