While the federal minimum wage remains stuck — since 2009 — at $7.25 an hour, Florida’s own state minimum wage has increased to $8.10 for 2017. It had been $8.05 an hour.
Of the 21 states that have raised their minimum wages for 2017, Florida is one of four that increased the existing minimum wage by only a nickel. The other three are Alaska, Missouri, and Ohio. Massachusetts and Washington state will have the highest new state minimum wages in the country, at $11.00 per hour.
Employers generally must pay workers the highest minimum wage prescribed by federal, state, or local law. There are 29 states with a minimum wage higher than the federal minimum.
Municipalities have been busy setting their own local minimum wages. As of July 1, 2018, San Francisco is expected to become the first U.S. city to reach a local minimum wage of $15.00 an hour, while Los Angeles and Washington D.C. will reach the $15.00 mark in 2020.
In Miami Beach the local minimum wage is set to become $10.31 as of January 1, 2018, depending on the outcome of a legal challenge currently being litigated in the Miami-Dade County state circuit court.
The Florida Retail Federation, the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association, the Florida Chamber of Commerce, and other business groups representing employer interests, filed suit last December 14, arguing that the city ordinance violates a state statute (Section 218.077) that preempts local governments from setting their own minimum wages.
The city contends that a 2004 Florida constitutional amendment that set a state minimum wage higher than the federal rate (Art. X, Section 24) gives local governments the ability to set their own minimums, and that Section 218.077 of the Florida Statutes is therefore unconstitutional.
The case has been assigned to Circuit Judge Peter R. Lopez. No trial date has yet been scheduled.
